


The Children's Market

by kholly



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 25,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kholly/pseuds/kholly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up in a world where all children are bought Raven finds his family at the Children's Market.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago actually, but since I can read it and still enjoy it years later I thought it might be worth sharing.

He stood in the doorway hesitantly. It was an ordinary exam room. He'd been in this room or one like it more times than he could count, and he could count pretty high now. It had soft yellow walls covered with pictures of kittens and puppies and chicks and all sorts of baby animals waiting to fledge. Kind of like himself he thought. The room wasn't scary. It was full of stuff, but it wasn't scary stuff. They would do the same things they always did: weigh him and measure him and question him. Take his temperature, take his blood pressure, take his blood. But still he was a little bit scared. He'd had his fourth anniversary and he understood enough to know that if this exam went well he could go catch up to his older friends who had already moved on.

"Don't just stand there, come in."

The nurse was not one he'd ever seen before. She didn't quite snap at him, but she had that attitude that you saw among adults sometimes of being very busy and easily annoyed. He took a few steps closer to her thinking it might be a bad idea if she were annoyed with him.

She reached over to a pile of folders and started flipping through them. "What's your name then?"

"Raven29." He answered, firmly but politely. He'd learned that busy adults liked short answers and hated when you mumbled.

"Lots of Ravens today," she mumbled to herself still sorting through the folders. "Do you know your full number Raven?"

"11296912."

"All right then take off your shoes and hop on the scale."

They went through the motions. Raven knew the routine and even though he was expecting this exam to be different it really wasn't. At least not until they got to the questions at the end. The nurse rolled her little stool over to the counter and plucked a lollypop out of the bin before rolling back to where he sat on the exam couch. Usually lollypops came at the end and usually he got to pick his favorite flavor, but she hadn't pulled a bad flavor so he wouldn't complain. Except she didn't actually give it to him, she just kept twisting it around in her fingers while she looked over his file. She'd done the same with her pen earlier, but that was now tucked behind her ear. He waited impatiently, eyeing the lolly and wondering what was going to happen next.

Finally the nurse looked up. "How have you been feeling lately?"

"Fine ma'am, not even the sniffles." It seemed that half the barracks had caught a cold over the winter which always made everyone nervous waiting to see who would get taken away to the sick kids barracks and who would get better and come back. Always better to not get sick enough to have to go in the first place.

"I see that you've had an anniversary since your last exam. Four years old now, you're a big kid. Do you feel any different?"

"Since my last exam you mean?" Raven asked. He was stalling, he had no idea what the right answer was and yet didn't want to get it wrong. The nurse nodded, still twirling the lollipop in her fingers. Raven licked his lips, wishing he was licking the lollypop and already on his way out of the office. "Um, I guess not really. I mean, maybe I feel different from my last anniversary, but not really different from my last exam." He dared to look up from the lollypop to the nurse's face. "Am I supposed to feel different?"

The nurse patted his knee. "Not really. It's just that some kids feel anxious, or nervous, or excited, or even just happy to be moving up to the big kids barracks. Have you been feeling nervous? Having trouble sleeping or eating or anything like that?"

Raven let out the breath he'd been holding. "Oh no ma'am, nothing like that. I mean, my best friend Dove, Dove18, he went last month, so I'm looking forward to seeing him again. And Raven2 went last week and she promised to save me a place at the lunch table when I come. So I've been looking forward to seeing them. But I'm ok waiting my turn. And anyway I've been playing with Heron23 and Heron24. They're really funny and good at getting the night nurse to read us an extra story before bed." He cut himself off when the nurse raised her eyebrow and reached for her pen to make a note. He hoped he hadn't gotten the Herons in trouble.

"The note from your teacher says you play well in groups but like to spend time by yourself too. Why is that?"

"Why do I like to play alone?" he asked, a note of panic creeping into his voice. They'd gotten a new younger teacher a few months ago and he really liked her because she let him stay by the edge of the forest next to the soccer fields as long as he promised not to go out of sight. But it was bad enough he'd just gotten the Herons in trouble, he didn't want to get the teacher in trouble too for letting him be alone. "Um, well, I mean if you sit alone then all the animals will come out. Not the squirrels, they don't come close. But little things like ants and beetles and I saw a grasshopper once. But if you're with everybody then it's too loud and the animals won't come."

"Have you ever hurt the animals Raven?"

"What? No!" The question was so shocking to him that he forgot to be polite.

"Some people do you know. Even just by accident. It's ok if it's an accident."

"No! Never!" he insisted.

"Ok. It's ok, it's good that you don't," she said, patting his knee again and trying to sooth him. But he flinched and pulled away. He'd always been told that the nurses were there to help keep him healthy and strong. But he was no longer sure he trusted this one. She sighed and rolled her stool away from him. "All right Raven, we're done, you can go."

He hopped off the couch, but stood his ground looking up at her. He had one question on his mind and it wasn't about getting a lollypop. "Did I pass?"

She smiled for the first time since he'd been with her. "Yes. You are a healthy, intelligent, well adjusted little boy. It is time for you to move on to be with the big kids. Go out to the lobby. Your teacher will be there to walk you and the others over to the big kids barracks."


	2. Chapter 2

Raven hadn't lied to the nurse, he'd been eating and sleeping just fine, but he was intimidated on the walk across campus to where the big kids lived. The only thing he really knew about it was that he had friends there. He could see it, over there, on the other side of the stream that cut through campus, but he'd never been allowed to cross the stream before. Everyone said it was better over there and he thought maybe it would be if they had books that had more than just pictures in them and played games that took a little thought to win. He was proud of himself that he didn't cry on his walk into the unknown. One of the girls in his group wouldn't stop. She was quiet about it and kept on walking, but she cried the whole way. He felt bad for her; sometimes it was hard to be a big kid when you'd only just turned four. He never found out how she settled in though. She didn't end up on his floor in the barracks and he never saw her again after that.

It didn't take long for Raven to settle in. Dove was one of the six boys in his bunk room, and Raven2 was in the girls bunk room next door and part of his cohort. Of the 12 of them in his cohort four had only recently arrived, four were nearing their fifth anniversaries, four were already five and would get to leave campus every Saturday and go to Market. So he not only had people around who knew him, he had people who knew what was going on and could show him the ropes. By the time of his next medical when they asked him how he was getting along and whether he had any trouble sleeping or eating he proudly declared that everyone was right, he liked being a big kid, it really was better over here.

One of the things Raven liked best was the games. In the mornings they got to have free play on the playground and nobody bothered him if he wandered down to the stream to look for tadpoles and salamanders. When the weather was bad they would have to stay inside and then they would end up playing word games and counting games with the teacher. That was ok too, but he thought they probably shouldn't call it free play then. But in the afternoons they would play real games; they didn't just have a teacher anymore now they also had a coach. The twelve of them made a real team and they could learn real sports like basketball and baseball and soccer. At the beginning of the week they would learn and practice and on Fridays they would get to play an actual game against another cohort.

One Friday afternoon Raven and Dove stood along the edge of the soccer field watching their teammates chasing round after the ball. "Why do you like soccer so much?" Dove asked. "You can never keep up with everyone else. You're not really very good."

Raven scowled. He knew that, he didn't need Dove to point it out. "It's just cuz I'm smaller than them. Next year when I'm bigger than everyone I'll be better."

"Yeah, but why do you like it now? You can't even keep up with me and we're the same."

"Cuz there's a right place to be and it's changing all the time. You have to know. Even if I can't get there in time I like figuring it out."

Dove harrumphed and they both looked back out at the game, and the cluster of kids, in one big clump, chasing after the ball. As they watched one of the boys separated himself from the group. Or rather, let the group separate from him as he just stopped dead in the middle of the field while the rest ran on. For a few seconds he just stood there, hands on his knees, gasping for breath, and then he flopped down onto the ground. Raven gasped, eyes wide, horrified; he'd never seen anything like that happen before. Instinctively he reached out and clutched at Dove's arm. "Who is it? Can you see?" He asked.

Dove, equally stunned, merely shook his head. From Raven's other side Pike26 spoke up. She was one of the five year olds in his cohort. "That's Hawk3, he's on the other team. He used to be in my class in the nursery."

Now that she was the voice of authority the boys started peppering her with questions. "What's wrong with him?"

"Is he sick?"

"Are they going to take him away?"

She shook her head. "He's got asthma. That's not like really being sick. See? His coach is out there already giving him medicine."

"What's asthma?" Raven asked.

"It's what Hawk has. It's like when you run around too much and then you can't breath."

"Like Raven? Does he have asthma?" Dove asked.

"No he's just out of shape. He could run better if he did it more. Hawk says it's like all of a sudden his throat closes and he can't get enough air in."

"That sounds like sick," Raven whispered.

"Well it's not so don't you say that!" Pike insisted. "See, he breathes in a little tube and then he's better." The boys looked. They couldn't see a little tube, but once a new player subbed in for Hawk the game resumed and no one seemed bothered.

Raven thought about that for the rest of the afternoon, his mind not on the game at all, even when he was playing it. Because not being able to breath sure sounded like sick to him, though he knew better than to say so out loud any more. He'd heard of kids who went off to the sick barracks for a little while and then came back. And other kids who went off and didn't come back. He wasn't sure what happened to them, but he was pretty sure he didn't want to be one because whenever that happened the teachers all seemed a little sad. But if not all sick was sick how could he know what it was safe to be sick with and what wasn't?


	3. Chapter 3

Raven's other favorite thing about being a big kid was the books and his evening teacher Jenny. They would sit around the library every evening for story time. Sometimes they would sit in a circle and sing songs. Sometimes Jenny would tell them stories. But sometimes Jenny would read them stories out of real books with real words. And while they were supposed to all be sitting in a circle just listening, Raven always made sure to sit next to Jenny so he could look over her shoulder at the words while she read.

A lot of the stories they read were about older kids, six year olds and ten year olds. Kids who had families and pets, who lived in family homes and went to school. It was all stuff they were supposed to be looking forward to once they got to Market and found a family of their own. Raven found it hard though since everything about it sounded so different from the life he knew. The cartoons and TV shows were all like that too, the kids were all in school. It didn't interest Raven. For him the best part of TV time was that he would sit in the back with the book they'd just read and he'd try to remember how it went and figure out which words were which. Sometimes Jenny would help him.

"Don't you want to go to school?" Jenny asked him one evening. "They'll teach you how to read there."

"You're teaching me to read." Raven pointed out.

"Not properly. More like you're teaching yourself."

"Why won't you teach me properly?"

"You're too young yet. Now is the time in your life for games and fun, for growing to be strong and healthy."

"What if I don't? Can I still have a family if I get sick?"

Jenny looked away for a minute and when she turned back to him she didn't answer his question at all. "You won't Raven, you're very healthy."

"Yeah, but, how come there's no stories about sick kids."

"Because very few kids get sick anymore. We've figured out how to keep everyone healthy. Really, you don't need to worry about it."

It was always the things he didn't need to worry about that seemed the most worrying to him. But he also knew enough to let it go when she used that tone of voice. "What if I don't find a family at Market? How come there are no stories about kids who don't find families?"

"Because everyone finds a family Raven," Jenny snapped. Raven drew his knees up, hugging them to his chest and rolling his shoulders, making himself as small as possible. He didn't like it when he got Jenny mad at him, he just had so many questions in his head. Jenny sighed and shifted around in her seat to face him. "I don't know how they figure it out, but they do. There really is a family for everyone. And you don't have to worry about it anyway. It's not so much that you have to find a family as it is that a family finds you. Besides, it's months yet before you're old enough for Market, why are you thinking about it at all?"

"How come there are no stories about Market?"

Jenny closed her eyes for a second before answering. "I don't know. But maybe when you grow up you can work for the television and you can make those stories." He nodded, that sounded like a good idea. "But first you'll have to learn to read and write, which means you'll have to go to school."

He looked down at the book in his lap, counting up the words he recognized. If he hadn't already known the story it wouldn't have been enough to figure out what was going on. If school filled in the gaps maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Though he was annoyed at the nagging feeling that she'd tricked him into thinking so.


	4. Chapter 4

There were always at least one or two kids in his cohort going off to Market on Saturdays, but when Raven first arrived he didn't really know them well and so wasn't paying that much attention. The most he thought about it was that maybe when they went one of the Herons might replace them. It didn't work out though. They didn't even end up together, which seemed impossible to him. Heron24 at least ended up in a cohort on his floor so he could see her sometimes on the playground or at lunch. But Heron23 ended up in a different building entirely and they only saw him sometimes on a Friday when their cohorts would compete against each other.

It wasn't until Pike26 went to Market for the first time that Raven realized he could start finding out what it was really like. That night at dinner he thought he would have to bombard her with questions, but she was very excited to talk about it and in fact they had a hard time getting her to stop. She and Trout7 returned just in time for dinner and Pike sat down at their table bursting with news. All it took was one question from Dove to get her going. "Where's Skate?"

"He's not coming back! He got his family today, I saw it. They were talking for a while, and then they went away, and then they came back, put him in their basket and wheeled him off to the front gate. And that's it, he got his family, he's not coming back."

"It happens that fast?" One of the girls asked.

"Well not that fast, he's older than me, he's been going to Market for weeks."

"Is it fun going to Market?" Raven asked, not so much interested in Skate as in the Market itself. "What's it like there?"

Pike smiled. "It was so exciting. We got to ride on the bus, you know like the bus we took to the zoo last month. And we went entirely across the city, all the way to the other side, to this huge park. It was kind of boring at first because we had to wait in long lines and recite our full names over and over and over. But then they put a pin on the front of our shirts and just let us go play. And there were kids there from all over. I met a girl, her name was Pike26 too. I wonder if all Pike26s are girls. She had a different last number though. Anyway, she said her campus is up in the hills and from her library window they have a view of the whole city."

Everyone around the table gave an appreciative "Ooh." Up until the trip to the zoo Raven had only been vaguely aware that the city existed outside the campus walls. He knew cities existed, they were in books and on TV, but he never really knew one was that close.

After giving her friends a few seconds to be impressed with her Pike continued on. "It was a lot like free play in the mornings. It was a giant park and we could run around all we want. Except whenever the clock tower chimed the hour we had to go back to see our teachers. It wasn't until lunchtime that I realized…" She leaned in and everyone at the table leaned in around her. "Some of the kids on the playground had families. Because there were a lot more grownups around than you usually see."

"Did you talk to any grownups, or just other kids?" Dove asked.

"Just kids. The teachers kept saying, over and over, don't talk to any grownups unless they talk to you first."

"I want to go to Market. When can I go?" Wolf18 asked. She was one of the youngest ones in their cohort, but she was never shy about asking for what she wanted.

Owl11 scowled at her. "You're just a baby. All of the birds will get to go before you do."

"I'm not a baby or I wouldn't be here," Wolf growled back.

"You are too. You're so young we shouldn't call you Wolf at all, we should call you Pup."

Wolf's face started turning red as she struggled to think of something better to say than "Am Not!" Before she could have a fit of temper Pike jumped in. "Leave her alone Owl. You get her going and Jenny will come sit with us and then no one will get dessert." Raven looked over his shoulder toward where the night teachers were sitting. She was listening intently to one of the other teachers and hadn't noticed them at all. He liked Jenny, but he didn't want her to join them. Big kids were supposed to be able to eat by themselves. Any time one of them proved unable it tended to be the whole table that suffered.

"I'm still not a baby," Wolf muttered quietly.


	5. Chapter 5

As the seasons moved on Raven found himself spending more and more of his mornings down by the stream. He had found a group of tadpoles almost as soon as they hatched. From day to day he hadn't seen them changing, but now they were toads. So it had happened, as he had been warned by his day teacher that it would, and he'd even seen it happen, but he still felt like he sort of missed it. It made him think about his own growing and changing. He knew he was getting taller. He didn't even need the nurse's measurements to tell him; he could reach things now that he couldn't when he'd first arrived at the big kids barracks. Yet he didn't quite notice when that happened either.

He liked the toads. If you were still for long enough they would forget you were there and you could spot them along the edge of the water. He had picked one up once to see if it was as slimy as it looked. It wasn't. It wouldn't have been gross at all except that it peed on his hand. That was pretty gross. When he told his teacher why he needed to go wash his hands she told him they did that when they were unhappy. That seemed funny to him, especially when he tried to picture doing it himself. In the end he was glad he knew; he didn't want to make the toads mad at him. Then they might not come out where he could see them.

One day just before lunch Wolf came stomping over to where Raven was sitting by the stream. Raven winced worried that the toads would all jump away just from the way she walked. "What do you do over here every day?" Wolf demanded. Raven responded silently, pointing to a toad on a nearby rock at the edge of the water. "Oh, cool, frogs!"

She started to take a step forward but Raven reached out and put his hand on her leg to stop her. "Toads, actually," he replied quietly. "If you scare it it'll jump in the water."

She shook his hand off her leg. "Toads, frogs, same difference."

"Not really."

She had listened to him though, because she moved very slowly and carefully over to where the toad sat. Raven got up and followed her. She squatted down and started reaching out. As soon as he realized what she was about to do he put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't do that, they don't like it." She scowled at him and in a quick movement reached out and scooped the toad up off the rock. "Hey! Stop, put him back!"

Wolf laughed. "Why would I? I've got him now." She squeezed him and laughed again. She only stopped laughing when the toad peed. Raven might have laughed at her for that, but before he could she threw the toad back on the ground. "Oh, yuk! Stupid frog!"

"Hey!" Raven cried in shock. Relief flooded through him as he watched the toad hop its way into the water. "What'd you do that for? You could have hurt him!"

"Good! I hope I did!" She said and reached out and wiped her hand on Raven's shirt. He pushed her away from him, closer to the water and she could see the toad, or maybe another one, where it was hiding just under the water line. She picked up a stone and threw it at the creature.

Raven immediately jumped in front of her. "Stop that!" he shouted. She tried to shove him aside, but he pushed her back. For a minute he found himself rolling on the ground, pushing and shoving and shouting. And then the next thing he knew he was being hauled up by the back of his shirt and was staring into the face of his very disappointed day teacher.

They were both marched off to the nurse's office where he was poked and prodded and questioned. In the end the questioning took so long that he missed lunch. He knew that fighting was wrong. And he knew that missing lunch was meant to remind him of it. Still, all afternoon, every time his stomach grumbled, he thought it had been worth it to save the toads.


	6. Chapter 6

The week before Dove's fifth anniversary they were playing basketball against another cohort. Basketball had become Raven's favorite game now that he was one of the oldest kids on the court and was no longer shorter than everyone else. He wasn't very good at making baskets, but he knew how to put his arms up and block a shot. But the problem with a cohort of twelve and a game that only played five people at a time was that you spent a lot of time standing around watching. Raven and Raven2 used that standing around time to huddle near Dove. They didn't talk about it really, but they would all be heading off to Market soon and once that happened you had no idea how much longer you'd be able to spend with someone. Some kids got a family in just a couple of weeks, for some it took a couple of months. They'd even heard stories of some kids taking more than a year to find a family, but none of them really believed that. After all, none of them had ever met a six year old so it must not be true. Raven didn't wish any trouble for Dove, but he also secretly hoped that he didn't find his family too quickly. It would be awful to go to Market the first time and not have Dove there. Raven had never done anything new without Dove.

Their team wasn't doing very well in this game. Most of the younger kids in their cohort were small and not particularly coordinated. He tried not to be too bothered by it. The coach was always saying, "It's just a game, play well, but play for fun." He knew he hadn't been the best player when he arrived and nobody gave him a hard time about it. Still it wasn't as much fun when you were losing.

The alarm buzzed for a substitution of players and Wolf18 and Fox21 came off the court. Wolf wasn't nearly as good of a player as she thought she was, but Fox was downright horrible. They started bickering before they even got out of earshot of the coach. Raven noticed him keeping one eye on them and only half paying attention to the game.

"You suck." Wolf declared. Everyone sucked in a breath and Dove nervously looked over his shoulder at the coach. That was a stronger word then they were allowed to use. You heard all sorts of things when you went on field trips even though they tried to keep nursery kids away from family kids as a rule. Wolf was always showing off what bad words she'd learned. Fox's bottom lip started to quiver. He was quite sensitive to the fact that he wasn't very good at games. That just made Wolf sneer. "You're such a baby."

Raven2 tried to step in. "Leave him alone. You always hated it when Owl called you a baby. Why would you do it to someone else?"

"If he doesn't like it he can grow up. I did," Wolf replied taking a step forward. She was several inches taller than Fox and crowding in on him just caused him to shrink in on himself further. "You should tell the coach you can't play. We're going to lose this game because of you."

"Well that's dumb. If he doesn't play how's he ever going to get better?" Dove challenged. Raven thought that was pretty brave of him. He was proof that challenging Wolf could get a kid in trouble, so he wasn't in a hurry to jump in himself. The toads had been defenseless, Fox ought to be able to stand up for himself. Though it was clear that he wasn't going to as he looked gratefully between Dove and Raven2.

Wolf turned on Dove. "Are you calling me dumb?" She demanded. She charged toward him, clearly expecting he'd back away, as most people did. But Dove held his ground and she ran into him. He stumbled back but Raven reached out and kept him from falling.

Before any of them could respond to that, Coach was standing in the middle of them. "All right, enough!" he said in a tone that would brook no arguments, even from Wolf. He reached down and took her hand. "Wolf, you're coming with me." With that they left and the rest of the cohort just stood around staring at each other. Even those that were in the middle of the game had stopped to watch. The ref blew his whistle focusing everyone back on the game.

"What's going to happen to her?" Fox whispered. No one knew. The other team's coach came over and kept the game going and they spent the rest of the afternoon almost pretending it hadn't happened.

Wolf never showed up for dinner. When they gathered around Jenny in the evening everyone was subdued. Even Jenny. No one was interested in stories and so Jenny didn't even try. "What do you want to know?" she asked after she got them all settled.

"What happened to Wolf?" Raven2 asked for all of them.

"She's gone to the sick kids barracks."

"Did I make her sick?" Fox asked, horrified at the thought.

"No, Fox, you did not make her sick," Jenny answered firmly. "Sometimes it just happens and there's nothing you can do other than take them to the sick barracks and hope the nurses can make them better."

"Will we see her again?" Raven asked. It's not that he wanted to see her again. He didn't really like Wolf. But the sick barracks wasn't something you wished on anyone.

Jenny shook her head sadly. "The nurses might be able to make her better, but it'll take a while. You'll have found your family long before Wolf comes back."

So that was it. This morning she was here, and now she's gone. And it would happen to all of them soon enough. You either got sick or you got a family. Either way his whole life was changing without anyone asking him if he wanted it to change. He wasn't sure he did. He just knew he couldn't stay. He couldn't imagine being a six year old and still being in the nursery. That might be even worse than getting sick.


	7. Chapter 7

He hesitated in the doorway. It was that nurse again, the one who passed him into the big kids barracks, the impatient one who muttered and never smiled and teased him with a lollypop that he never was allowed to eat. He hadn't seen her in a year. His last exam was only a couple of days before his fifth anniversary and he had wondered then if they would clear him for Market. It wasn't this nurse he'd seen then and now he wondered if someone had already decided he wasn't ready. He was disappointed because Dove was still around then, but just last weekend he found his family and didn't come back. After all of his worry about whether or not he really wanted to go to Market, now that Dove was gone he didn't want to stay.

Remembering that she was unhappy with him last time he took a few steps into the room. She was reading through his file and didn't look up for several minutes. When she finally did she pierced him with an intent stare. "You've been fighting Raven..." She let it hang there and waited for him to respond.

"Yes ma'am," he agreed. It was part of his record. He couldn't deny it yet there wasn't much else to say. She kept looking at him though so he added "Just the one time."

"Who started it?"

He swallowed hard. "Um, well, I mean, I guess I did." She raised her eyebrows at that and waited for him to continue. "She was throwing stones at the toads and I couldn't think of any other way to stop her."

"Have your teachers talked to you about better ways to deal with that kind of situation?"

"Yes ma'am."

"And have you fought with anyone else? Even when you didn't get caught?"

"No ma'am," he replied. She stared at him again until he added, "Honest."

She nodded her head. "All right then. Let's do your exam."

Even though he knew that this exam was more important than any other he'd ever had, it still wasn't actually any different. The only change from the last time he'd met her was that she actually let him have a lollypop at the end. When she gave it to him she said, "You're going to meet a lot of new people at Market, don't let me hear about you getting into any fights."

"No ma'am."

"And tell your teachers to get you a haircut. No one likes an afro these days."

"Um, yes ma'am." She had already reached out for the next file on her desk, but he hesitated in the doorway before leaving. "Ma'am?" She looked up startled. "What would I have had to do to not pass?"

"You'd have had to be sick, and you're healthy. So go. I've got a lot more kids to see today."


	8. Chapter 8

Raven sat with his face pressed against the glass as the bus wound its way through the city. By feigning interest in the people an buildings and neighborhoods they passed he could keep from having to interact much with the kids around him. He might feel ready, he might even feel a little excited, but mostly he felt terrified.

Raven2 seemed to have been expecting that. As soon as they got on the bus she crowded into the bench seat with him. And for all her endless babble she never seemed to expect an answer from him. Her voice was comforting; one last bit of familiarity before heading into the unknown.

"Oh look Raven we're here," she said while reaching past him to point out the window.

He looked. They were driving slowly down a long city block. There was a sidewalk full of people and then a stone wall that wasn't even as tall as he was and then on top of the wall a wrought iron fence. It was kind of pretty. Each bar of the fence looked a little like the trunk of a tree and at the top its branches reached out to tangle with the branches of the tree next to it. It made the whole thing very tall. He bet he could get Raven to stand on top of his shoulders and together they still wouldn't be nearly as tall as it.

They were moving very slowly. "Does it always take this long?" he asked as though Raven had been more than twice before him.

She was happy to answer since her two trips made her an expert now. "It always slows down when you get close because it takes forever to get off the bus when you get there. They have to process all of us one at a time every time. It's the same going home at the end of the day too. They don't want you to get on the wrong bus you know. You'll see, its not so bad."

He nodded and turned back to the window. There were so many people, more than he'd ever seen before. Some were alone, walking quickly, trying to get through the crowds. Some were just walking along, talking to their friends or whoever they were with. The ones that really interested Raven though were the ones who weren't walking at all. They were looking through the fence at what was going on in the park beyond. He wondered what they could see. He wondered if they were families looking for kids. He'd been expecting them to go in the Market, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe it was more like seeing the animals at the zoo. He hoped not; he didn't want to have to stare out the fence to find his family. "Why don't they go in?" he asked Raven.

"It's not open yet. It wouldn't be fair if they got to start before all the kids had arrived," she explained.

"But some of them look like they're talking to someone on the other side."

"Don't ever do that," Raven2 warned. "If they qualify for a child they come in. If they can't come in you don't want to talk to them. It's not safe."

He might have asked her more about that but they finally arrived. He'd been warned by Pike and Dove and Raven and everyone who had gone before him that the arrival was the worst part. They weren't kidding. They were herded into the biggest building he'd ever seen. And inside it was just one big room full of lines and lines of kids. It was noisy and crowded and so overwhelming he might have cried except that Raven held his hand the whole way through. They entered by the doors to the sidewalk, and ages and ages later they had finally made it through the doors at the far end and into the park.

When everyone from their bus had finally emerged the teachers brought them over to the edge of an open field were there were a half a dozen picnic tables under some big trees. They reviewed all the rules, but most of it was stuff Raven had already heard from other people. Don't talk to any adults unless they talk to you first. Never ever talk to anyone outside the fence. Report back here whenever the clock tower chimed. Always be polite and play well with the other kids.

And that was it. The next thing he knew Raven had grabbed his hand and started running. "The clock just chimed so we've got almost an hour. I can show you the whole park before we have to report back," she said.

Raven kept looking back over his shoulder at the teachers. "Is that it?" he asked. "Aren't they going to teach us how to find a family?"

"No, that's all they ever say," she said, slowing up finally as they reached a big playground at one end of a small lake. There were already some kids playing here, but Raven2 just walked through and Raven trotted along after her. "This is the biggest playground. It's fun because there's lots to do, but there's always lots of kids too, so I don't see how anyone could pick you out of the crowd. I would only come here if you wanted a break from talking to adults. You'll see after it opens, there's always lots of adults around here, but I've never had one talk to me."

Raven was a bit in awe of her two weeks of experience and so grateful that she was giving him tips. "But you said you have talked to adults. Where was that?"

"I'm going to show you," she assured him and kept walking. They walked along the back side of the lake because she knew he'd like that, but mostly she talked about the boathouse on the other side and what kind of stuff went on there when it wasn't Market day. He didn't ask her how she knew. There was another playground at the far end of the lake but she again suggested against it. From there they walked along the fence. He realized it would have been the opposite fence from where they came in. She started running again until they came to a big gate. There were tables set up just this side of the gate, kind of like the ones in the building he'd come in through, only not as many. They turned away from the gate and started walking along a wide path. On either side people were setting up open sided tents and tables. "They sell stuff, but only to other adults. There's a word for them. Somebody told me but I don't remember," Raven2 admitted.

They stayed on the path until they came to a big tower with a clock at the top. Raven couldn't tell time, but he knew a clock when he saw one. The tower was so wide at the bottom that there were archways built in and you could walk right through it. Raven2 went right to the center and stopped. She pointed behind her, over her shoulder. "So that way is the family gate." Then she pointed to where the path continued in front of them. "And that way is the nursery building where we came in. In between here and there are basket ball courts and soccer fields." Then she pointed off to her right, because there were archways in all four directions. "That way is the lake and the two big playgrounds. And this way," she grabbed his hand and started running again, "is the best way." The path ended at a big fountain. There was a statue in the middle of a man in strange clothes who was standing on top of a mountain made of piled up rocks. Already there were kids climbing on the rocks and splashing in the foot of water that surrounded the bottom. "If your shoes are wet when you go for check-in you'll get in trouble," Raven2 warned.

They walked around to the far side of the fountain so they could see what the man in the statue was looking out on. It was a wide open area lined with trees. Raven looked to his right. He couldn't see his teachers but he realized they must be down at that end somewhere. Almost every tree he could see had a park bench or picnic table under it. And at intervals along the edges of the field were little playgrounds. Some swings and a sandbox here, a slide an a jungle gym there, one of those spinning platforms that always made him feel sick along with some seesaws straight across from him. "This is the best place to go," Raven2 informed him. "Last week I spent all afternoon flying kites with a family. Two Moms and a girl who's nine. And you know what? They told me to meet them here at the fountain after lunch this week. I'm glad you finally came Raven because this might be my last week."

Raven was still trying to process that information when the clock tower chimed. He expected Raven2 to start running again, but she didn't. "It's ok, they know it'll take a few minutes to get back. Just don't take too long." She stopped for a second and gave him a long serious look. He wondered if she could tell how scared he was. Maybe, she took his hand when she started walking again. "A lot of people will tell you a lot of things Raven. Do this, don't do that. Play here, don't play there. Everyone says always try to play with kids who are older than you because if they like you they'll ask their family to bring you home. Maybe that's all true. I played over here, and I played with Michelle. But I didn't do it on purpose. They make it sound like a lot of work, but I don't think it is. I think you just do what you want to do here and the family who wants someone like you will find you."

"That's easy for you to say, you found a family in two weeks."

"Not yet."

"What will you do if they don't come back after lunch?"

"I'll play with you, silly." She grabbed his hand and started running again, not because she had to, just because she liked it.

They played together all morning and after lunch he was with her by the fountain when her family showed up. She went off with them and about an hour later came back to give him a hug goodbye. He cried. After that he went to the back side of the lake to look for frogs until the end of the day.


	9. Chapter 9

As the bus slowed for its approach to the Market on Raven's second week he gazed out at all the people on the sidewalk. It had been a long week. The rest of his cohort had tried to cheer him up but without Dove and Raven around he just felt lonely. He had an urge to go hide with the toads again, but as he looked at all the people walking along he realized he really did want to be one of them. And he understood that no one would take home a boy that did nothing but sulk and mope and hide. So he gritted his teeth and determined that today he would have fun. He would run and play and make new friends. He would climb on the jungle gym and swing on the swings and do all the things he liked to do anyway. If he were a happy boy, if he were a fun-loving boy, he would be the kind of boy that people would want in their family.

Most of the kids on the bus were people Raven knew. Some of them lived in his building and he'd played with them in the mornings, others he'd played against in the organized games of the afternoons. So once they all eked their way through the arrival building he found a few to play soccer with and then raced them all to the open fields. He still wasn't actually very good at soccer. When he played only against other five year olds he was slow and wrong footed; still he didn't care. The chance to run around without having to think too much about anything other than where the ball had got to was exactly what he needed. By the time they all went back to the tables for lunch he was laughing and happy again.

The swing set beckoned him after lunch. He wanted a chance to sit without looking lazy because he was pretty sure he couldn't even pretend to keep up with more soccer. That was ok, he liked the swings, liked to see how high he could get. He often wondered, if he could get himself high enough would he flip over the top in a big circle? He'd never been able to manage it, but he kept trying. He was hard at it when two boys appeared in front of him. They each held sticks with nets at the end and one had a ball in his other hand. "I bet he won't jump." The younger of the two said.

"No bet," the older boy replied. "He's too little, he'd never jump."

"I would too," Raven countered.

"Prove it," the older boy demanded. Raven took a minute to pump his legs and get himself up even higher. The older boy shook his head. "See, Charlie, he's stalling. He won't do it."

"Will too! Gotta get high enough." With one more pump he launched himself out of the swing. He landed with a stumble and then picked himself up. "See."

The boy nodded his head. "Not bad. Wanna play lacrosse?"

"Um, ok."

"Do you know how?"

"No, but I still wanna."

"Ok, come on," the older boy said, heading off toward the field. Raven trotted to catch up. "I'm George and that's my little brother Charlie."

"I'm Raven29."

"All right, Raven. I'll show you first." George dropped the ball into the net at the end of his stick and then tossed it to Charlie who had gone about ten feet away. Charlie caught it in his net and then tossed it back. Raven swallowed hard. He was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to do that. They had tried badminton one week with Coach and not once had he been able to get the racket to connect with the bird thingy. After a few tosses back and forth George turned to Raven. "Are you ready to try?"

"Um, ok." He was relieved that for his first toss George stood behind him and held the stick too. That went ok. And for Charlie's toss back George caught it while Raven held on. Then George took a step back leaving Raven on his own. He took a deep breath and swung the stick with all his might. The ball went flying off to the side. Charlie shook his head and went running after it. When he retrieved it he was now much farther away. Raven was expecting him to run back; instead he threw it as hard as he could from where he was. Raven flinched away, leaving the ball to hit George squarely in the chest.

"Toss it gently, Charlie," a man called from the side of the field.

"Is that your Dad?" Raven asked.

"Yeah," George answered as he dropped the ball in Raven's net. "Well, Charlie's but yeah. And that's Mom next to him. Now, when you throw it back to Charlie point your stick at him at the end of your throw."

Raven tried that. The ball didn't go nearly as off to the side this time, but only got about half way there before it landed on the grass with a thump and stopped dead. "But if you've got a Mom and a Dad and two kids what are you playing with me for?"

"We're here to get a kid for Mom," George answered before ducking as Charlie's toss sailed past Raven's net.

Raven turned around to watch George recover the ball. "But that's not right. One Child for Every Adult. That's what all the signs say at the Family Gate."

"How would you know?"

"I read it."

"Who taught you to read?"

"I taught myself."

George just shook his head and dropped the ball back in Raven's net. "Try again," he instructed.

Raven concentrated very hard and this time his throw went right toward Charlie, but about ten feet over his head. Behind him he heard George sigh. "Why are you playing with me though?"

"Because Charlie goes with Daddy John, and I went with Daddy Chris, and Mom still needs her kid."

"Isn't your dad supposed to be here too?"

"He died." Just then, unaware of the turn in the conversation, Charlie threw the ball back. Raven managed to get his stick on it this time without actually catching it.

When George bent to pick up the ball Raven whispered, "Don't they send you back when that happens?"

George ripped the stick out of Raven's hands. "Of course not. Families are forever." He sounded like he was quoting someone. Before Raven could ask any other questions though George called out to Charlie. "Come on, let's go. This one can't even catch a ball."

Raven watched them go deciding the next time someone asked him if he wanted to play lacrosse he'd say no. There were better kids playing better games that he could join. He wandered off toward the basketball courts thinking maybe he'd try that until the clock chimed.

He did like the idea that families were forever, though. If he could just find one.


	10. Chapter 10

Five weeks in the Market was starting to lose it's appeal. At first it was exciting in that scary and different way. But as summer picked up it kept getting more and more crowded. He wondered if there was a season for families the way the nurse once told him that everybody buys strawberries in spring. Is summer boy season? It seemed like it. There were families everywhere. At first it was fun to have new people to play with, but now he just felt overwhelmed. The toys on the playground were crowded and everyone was bigger than him. It made him feel small.

Off to the edge of the playground he spotted a tree with sturdy branches. He thought with a good strong jump he ought to be able to pull himself up. From there he'd be away from everybody and have a good view. Once he got up there and settled in he started really looking at people. The problem with families was there were so many kinds. He was always being told he should want one, but nobody ever really explained what it meant to have one. There were all types of parents, mothers and fathers, young and old, some were skinny, some were fat, some were dark skinned and some were pale, some smiled and laughed a lot, some looked like they just drank sour milk. Almost all of them talked to you with that tone of voice that made you feel stupid. But they didn't talk to each other that way. And then there were the kids - boys and girls helping their parents select a new brother or sister. Some of the kids seemed to be looking forward to it. They hinted at being lonely not having other kids in the house. But others made it really hard for their parents to like you. Like having 100 percent of the attention of two or more adults was the best thing that ever happened to them and they weren't about to share now. If it really was the best thing maybe he ought to climb back down and set about finding himself a parent. Or maybe he'd wait until after the next time the clock tower chimed.

Before he realized it a tall skinny man walked up from behind him and leaned on the bottom branch of the tree putting his head at about the level of Raven's knees. His hair was reddish brown and looked all messy like he'd just woken up. And the shorts and button down shirt he was wearing were very wrinkled. Maybe he had just gotten up from a nap. The thought made Raven giggle and then clamp his hand over his mouth lest the man realize he was being laughed at.

"Are you ok up there?" The man asked.

"Yes."

"Are you going to have any trouble getting down?"

"No."

"Good view from up there, I suppose."

"I can see everyone," Raven confirmed.

"Tell me what you see."

Raven looked around, wanting to give the man a thorough answer. "There's a bunch of kids from my nursery on the jungle gym. And some bigger kids on the spiny thing. Oh, and the girl on the swings, the one who looks kind of sad? She used to be on the spiny thing but I think she puked. There's a woman in a pink dress playing with a girl on the slide. At the picnic table on the left there are two men playing a card game with three kids. Or maybe it's a magic trick, or one of them is cheating, he just put a card up his sleeve. And the picnic table on the right has a huge family." He stopped to count. "There's six adults and a whole bunch of kids coming and going."

"It could be more than one family," the man pointed out. "You're pretty good at making observations though. You could be a scientist."

"My teacher says I should work for the television so I can tell all the stories that answer all my questions."

"Do you ask a lot of questions?"

"I guess."

"Your teachers must love you."

Raven just shrugged. Even though he wasn't sure how to answer that one, he liked that the man was talking to him like he should understand it.

The man stood up straight and reached up with one hand. Raven eyed it suspiciously. He already said he didn't need help getting down. The man smiled. "My name is David," he said, and extended his hand a little farther.

Oh. Right. Raven reached out and shook the man's hand. "I'm Raven11296912."

"Well Raven29, I suppose birds are meant to be in trees. I'm a bird too actually, Osprey30, though it's been a long time since anyone's called me that." David went back to leaning on the tree branch, looking out at the scene that Raven had been studying. "Shouldn't you be out there looking for a family?"

"Shouldn't you be out there looking for a boy?" Raven shot back. The way David was talking to him was giving him a bit of confidence.

"No, I'm not ready to buy yet."

"Then why did you come?"

"My wife thinks if I spend time around kids it'll make me want one of my own."

That just proved to him that there were too many things he didn't understand. "Does it work that way?"

"I don't know yet. But my wife is a smart woman, so maybe it does. She would really like to grow our family though, so I'm trying."

"Can you grow a family like you grow strawberries? Because I think boys might be in season now, we're all over the Market."

David laughed. "How old are you?"

"Five."

"You might be right about the seasons. A lot of people who want to buy a child will do it in the summer so they have time to settle before school starts."

"Oh." Raven had been joking, kind of. He didn't think it was true anyway. He looked down at the messy man below him; his pale skinny arms sticking out from his rolled up sleeves and his glasses slipping down his nose. He'd met a lot of adults in the last five weeks, but none quite like this one. Maybe because this one wasn't testing him to see if he was good enough to bring home, they just talked. It was so unfair, he couldn't seem to talk like this when it mattered. Still, if David would answer questions then he should think of one or two good ones to ask. "What is a family, anyway?"

"What?" David asked. He looked startled at first but then quickly grew serious peering up at him over the rims of his glasses.

"Well, um, I mean, everyone says you're supposed to want a family, but what is it? Because if I like strawberries I can go to the bin and pick any one and they're all the same. But I've been watching all those families and they're not the same. So what makes them families and why should I want one?"

David took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes. Then he ducked under the tree limb he'd been leaning against and turned to face Raven properly. "Do you like dogs?"

That was so disappointing. Raven really thought David might be the first adult to answer an important question. "Yeah, I guess," he mumbled.

"Big dogs, little dogs, furry dogs, short haired dogs. They're all different, but they're all still dogs, right? Because they all have four feet and they bark."

Oh. "Right. So then what do all families have that make them families?"

"Well... love."

"Oh. Well that's ok then, I've already got a family. Jenny loves me."

"Who's Jenny?"

"My night teacher. I love her too."

"I'm sure you do," David said, rubbing at his eyes again. "But you see, cats have four feet but they're not dogs because they have whiskers and they don't bark. Jenny is like a cat. Families are groups of people choose to be together for the rest of their lives because they love each other."

"No, that's not right," Raven argued. "Jenny says my family is here somewhere I just have to be patient until we find each other. But I don't love them, I don't even know them."

"You don't love them yet, but you will. After all, did you love Jenny on the day you met her?" Reluctantly Raven shook his head. "But you grew to love her, and you'll grow to love your new parents."

Raven chewed on his lip, thinking about that for a bit. "Are you sure? Really truly sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Oh." Not really truly then. "Why don't you want a family?"

"I have a family. Molly and I will be together forever. She's enough for me."

"Oh."

David spun around and leaned back against his branch looking out at the playground again. "I don't know why I agreed to come here, it's just like I remember. Are you always this difficult? I don't think I could be a dad. I don't think I could do this every day."

He pushed off from the tree and looked like he was about to walk away so Raven called out to him. "David?" When the man turned around he whispered, "Please don't tell them I'm difficult."

"I won't, I promise." He took a step forward and put his hands on the limb Raven was sitting on, on either side of his knees. "You're going to be fine Raven. It might take time, and it might be a bit of a nightmare while you're going through it, but eventually everything is going to be all right." He patted Raven's knee and then turned and walked away.

Raven watched him go. He wasn't walking fast, but he didn't pause to talk to anyone else, didn't even turn to look at anyone. When he was finally gone Raven closed his eyes and rested his head against the trunk of the tree. He was trying desperately not to cry. He finally found an adult who would give him answers and all that talking only left him feeling more confused and hopeless.


	11. Chapter 11

By the time Raven finished his second month of going to the Market he was an old pro at it. He knew he wasn't the oldest kid there. He'd met a Dove once. And last week when it rained he'd spent most of the day in the boathouse playing board games with a girl named Cardinal and a boy named Jay. They were both months older than him. Still, he'd gotten into the habit of giving advice whenever there was a new kid on the bus and he sort of wondered why they would listen to him if he'd been so unsuccessful at finding his own family.

He found that Raven2's advice on his first day had been spot on. When he wanted to be around a lot of people without having the pressure of talking to many adults he would go over to the big playground by the lake. There were always tons of kids to play with, but he found it rare that any adults would talk to him there. He'd been climbing around the jungle gym for nearly an hour before he realized there was one girl at the top who had climbed up and then never moved. He made his way up and then sat down next to her. "What's your name?" he asked without preamble.

"Wolf18."

That brought him up short. He almost blurted out that he knew a Wolf18 once, but caught himself when he realized he wouldn't want to have to say why she never came to Market. "I'm Raven29," he offered. She only shrugged at that. "You know no one is going to be able to talk to you up here."

The look she turned on him was pretty clear. 'How dumb are you?' but all she said aloud was "I don't want to talk, I just want to listen."

"I know what you mean. It's funny what they'll say when they don't realize you're listening. But who are you going to hear up here? Only other kids. What good is that? I know better places to go than this."

She looked at him suspiciously. "How do you know? How long have you been coming?"

"Oh, I stopped counting," Raven lied. He knew exactly how long, eight weeks. Jenny kept telling him it didn't matter how long it took and he thought the best way to believe her was to pretend she was right. He was about to try to convince her he would know without having to answer her question when the clock tower chimed. As he scrambled down he called out to her, "Meet me at the fountain after check-in and I'll show you."

"The fountain's no good, they always talk to you there," she answered stubbornly.

"We're not going to stay there, just meet there." He ran off half expecting she wouldn't bother to meet him, but ten minutes later she showed up. He tried to explain as he walked along. "If you want to listen you have to be someplace where the adults are talking to each other. And you have to be doing something that they stop noticing." He plopped himself down in a sandbox near the path. Its spot on the path was about half way between the clock tower and one of the larger picnic areas. There was a bench a few feet away, but it was facing toward the swings. Wolf stood in the middle of the sandbox and did a slow circle, taking all this in. She looked down at him with a grin and then with a quick move dropped down next to him and picked up a handful of dirt.

Over the course of the hour they slowly built up an elaborate sand castle. The good thing about being near the path was they heard a lot of different conversations as people walked by. The bad thing was those conversations often didn't make much sense.

"The vendors had blues ones."

"But it needs to be sharp."

Wolf looked over at him and he just shrugged.

"Boy, girl, I don't care."

"Boys are messy, we should get a girl."

Raven caught Wolf wiping her hands on her shorts after that.

"I don't know how we're going to make ends meet if we do this."

"People have families all the time, they find a way."

"I'm just worried. Sales are down at work. It seems irresponsible."

"We could get a six year old. They're half price."

Raven and Wolf both looked at each other wide-eyed over that. "Is it true?" Wolf whispered. Raven shrugged. "There's six year olds here?"

"I've never met one," Raven whispered back. Then again, there were lots of kids at the Market that he'd never met. They both tuned the adults out for a while after that. Eventually the tower chimed again and Raven sat back to survey his handy work. It was pretty good, but it didn't feel done to him. He looked over at Wolf. "Meet you back here?" She nodded before she ran off.

After check-in Raven set about finishing the castle. He approached it like he did most of his art projects on rainy mornings at the nursery, methodically, with a meticulous attention to detail. He was lying on his stomach using a stick to carve in details of doors and windows while listening to the man and woman who were sitting on the park bench behind him.

"How are you holding up?" the woman asked.

"Fine," the man answered. Raven thought he might be lying. His voice sounded tense.

"I'm sorry I made you come alone last time. I didn't realize it would really give you nightmares."

"Now that I remember, it was the same dream I had as a kid. My parents said I woke up every night for a year screaming. I didn't remember that at all. I didn't remember anything about the Market. And then it all came flooding back, feeling lost and alone and abandoned and overwhelmed. In the dream it almost felt claustrophobic, like I was suffocating."

"I am sorry."

"It's not your fault. I have to get over it if we're going to have children."

"Seriously though, now that you remember, what happened? Because look around you, these kids aren't traumatized, they're just playing. It's just a normal part of life. Everyone you have ever known has gone through the Market."

"I don't know. Nothing happened."

They both stopped talking then and Raven risked a peek over his shoulder to see if they'd left. They were still there, but what he saw made him sit up and really look. He'd met this one, the man, he was the man from the tree a few weeks ago. The skinny one with the glasses. David, that was it. He was sitting on the bench with his elbows on his knees and his hands in his hair making it messy again. When he took a deep breath and sat up Raven quickly rolled over onto his stomach again so he wouldn't get caught listening.

"It might be normal, but it's not like it's natural," David muttered.

"Oh please, I was a history major. I know all about what life was like back in those days, and I'm not just talking about the plague. The world was full of rampant tribalism, and racism, and all this first born son crap as though any of that mattered. This way might not be natural, but has certainly turned out to be better."

David didn't seem to have anything to say to that, which disappointed Raven who was pretty sure he didn't understand most of what the woman had just said. Instead, after a minute he said, "Well, we're surrounded by boys and girls. What do you want to do about it?"

"I'd love to find someone with your hair color," she replied. "You never see redheads anymore."

"Are you kidding? After everything you just said?"

"No, you're right. Nothing too extreme. Not too smart or too athletic either I think."

Raven risked looking over to the bench. David was easily the palest person he had ever seen. He looked down at his own hands. His own skin was pretty dark and being out in the sun all summer had turn him to the color of wet asphalt. He sighed. Not quite right then. At the same time David sighed and asked, "Are we breeding ourselves to be mediocre?"

His wife ignored him. "What about that one?" She asked, pointing to a girl on a swing. "We should go talk to her."

"Ok," David agreed. "You go first and I'll stay here. I don't think we should crowd her too much." His wife went off, settling herself into an empty swing next to the girl. David leaned back and draped his arm along the back of the bench. He took a deep breath and started looking around. Raven thought he should probably go back to his sand castle but couldn't seem to make himself. Eventually David caught Raven staring at him. He gave a half chuckle. "Hello Raven."

"Hello David," he answered. Behind him Wolf gasped. "What's mediocre?"

David took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You and your questions." Raven didn't care. He'd already figured out that he wasn't quite right for them so there was no harm in seeing how many questions he could get answered. "It means average." Raven shook his head. He didn't know that word either. "Middle of the road. Ordinary, medium, fair, good but not great. Not too light or too dark, or too tall or too short, or too smart or too strong or too fast."

Raven looked down at his hands again. "I think I'm not average."

David laughed. "I know you're not average." He might have said something more but his wife came back and sat down beside him.

"Ok, not too smart is one thing, not smart enough is another." Before she could say anything more David took her hand and walked off down the path. About ten steps later she turned and looked back at him. He smiled and waved at her, but she didn't wave back. He wasn't too surprised. After watching them walk around the bend in the path he turned back to his sand castle.


	12. Chapter 12

The weeks continued to drift by and the high heat of summer came and went. Twice more he had seen David and his wife but they didn't talk. The first time they were in the distance walking down the path with a little girl in a blue sundress between them. The second time, a week or two later, Raven was on the swings when they came by. They made eye contact so Raven waved. David waved back with a small smile but then they continued on. They had a different girl with them that time.

Raven had taken to spending a lot of time by the fountain in an effort to keep cool, but then so had everyone else. He was relieved finally when he could sit at the stone edge and not have to fight for space. Early in the day the water was still rather cool from the night before. He dropped his sandals by the edge of the grass and plunged his feet in anyway. He wriggled his toes, making ripples in the water and thought about something he'd overheard the week before. School was starting soon. One of the older kids was talking about starting second grade and wondering who would be in his class this year. If that was true than the season for boys was coming to an end. He wondered what that would mean. In the winter you couldn't get strawberries at all. But he would still be available. Would his family think to come look for him in the off season? He splashed a bit more until his feet started getting numb. Then he pulled them up and just sat on the stone wall.

His bus was one of the last to arrive this morning and so by the time he got to the fountain the Market was already open and people were wandering about. It didn't take long for a woman to sit down next to him. She was sitting facing out and he didn't pay much attention to her at first. She didn't catch his interest until she slipped her shoes off and swung around to dunk her feet into the water. "Oh that's cold," she said, but left her feet in. Raven nodded and uncrossed his legs to slide his feet into the water again. She held out her hand, "Hi. I'm Molly."

He looked up at her as he shook her hand. "You're David's wife."

"Yes," she agreed. "He suggested we talk." She nodded off to the side and Raven looked over to see David sitting on a bench. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and his arms were draped along the back of the bench. Next to him was a blue wheelie basket that was mostly empty. He waved and Raven waved back. "How long have you been looking for a family Raven?"

He didn't bother to say he hadn't been counting; he knew. "Twelve weeks. How long have you been looking for a daughter?"

"Depends on how you count it I suppose. Off and on for about seven weeks. What makes you think we're looking for a daughter?"

"Because you're always walking around with girls."

"Hmm… I hadn't noticed. Why do you suppose you haven't found your family yet?"

He looked at her. She asked a lot harder questions than most adults asked. "I don't know," he whispered.

"Don't you?" she whispered back.

He looked down at his hands. His summer darkening still very much in evidence. "I'm not mediocre."

Molly put her hand on his shoulder. "You're not even average."

"Aren't they the same thing?"

"Similar. Average is better than mediocre, but you're better than that."

"Oh." That sounded a little like a compliment except he thought they were looking for average. "Why haven't you found a child?"

"I think we've been looking in the wrong places. Would you like to go for a walk with us Raven?"

His stomach lurched and suddenly he felt nervous. "Oh. Um, sure. I mean, yes thanks." She smiled, picked up her shoes and his, and walked over to where David was waiting. Raven followed along. "Um, hi," he said shyly.

David smiled, reached into the basket and pulled out a small towel. "Here, dry your feet." He did and then traded Molly the towel for his sandals. That was a nice treat. Usually when the clock chimed he just stuffed his feet wet into his shoes. That wasn't as bad with sandals as it was with sneakers but it still wasn't pleasant. And since he'd outgrown all the sneakers that his cohort had he didn't think that was going to be a problem he'd have again.

They each took one of his hands and started walking. David looked at his watch and then tugged them off in a certain direction. Raven twisted his wrist so he could look at David's watch, but he still couldn't tell time. "What's it say?" He asked.

"It says you're going to have to check in soon so we might as well walk that way." Raven looked back at the watch and grimaced. He didn't see it at all. David squeezed his hand and they kept walking.

A couple of minutes later the bells chimed. "How did you know?"

"They'll teach you how to tell time in second grade," Molly responded. "In the meantime you can just trust us."

Raven looked up at them. "Will I know you in second grade?"

David looked over at his wife and raised his eyebrows. "I don't know. Maybe." She sounded impatient. He would have to be careful with his questions, he thought.

Raven was the last of the kids to arrive for check in and when he did the teacher immediately brightened up. "Well Raven, who have you got with you?"

"Um, David and Molly," he said. All the adults shook hands.

"Can we talk?" David asked.

"Yes, of course," the teacher replied.

Raven didn't get to hear what they talked about because Molly pulled him away. They went to stand by the edge of the field where they could see everyone playing. There were some people playing Frisbee, and a bunch of kids standing in a circle tossing a ball around and off to the side a game of freeze tag was in full swing. "Do you like games?"

"Sure," he answered. That was the kind of question one expected from adults. She spent some time quizzing him on that. Which games he liked, which ones he didn't. Why. What sports he liked, what books he liked, what TV shows he liked. Did they ever do art projects and did he like that. It was all stuff he was used to being asked by now so he had his answers down pat. Earlier he had worried about figuring out what the right answers were. He spent some time talking to Jenny about it one night, hoping she would help him get his answers right. In the end they decided the best answers were the honest ones because he wanted a family who wanted him to be how he was anyway.

An hour passed before Raven realized it and he was surprised when the bells rang again. David came over and joined them. Raven peered up at him for a second but immediately David squatted down. "You're not allowed to have lunch with us," David said.

"No," Raven agreed. Not that anyone had ever wanted to have lunch with him before, but he knew what the rule was.

"So we're going to go away for a while, but we'll come back this afternoon and find you. Is that ok?" Raven nodded. "After lunch go over to the boathouse."

"Why the boathouse?" Molly interrupted.

David only shook his head at her. "We'll meet you by the lake, by the boathouse. Do you think you can do that?" Raven nodded again. "Ok, good. We'll see you then."

Raven watched them go holding hands and pushing their empty basket in front of them. He had been around long enough to know that they only way a five year old got through the Family Gate was in someone's basket. He wondered if today would finally be his day.

Lunch lasted forever. He wasn't hungry, his stomach was too nervous. And everyone wanted to ask him about David and Molly. They were all excited for him, as he'd been honestly excited for his friends before him. Now he was too distracted to even hear their questions much less give them coherent answers. Finally the bells chimed again and he was allowed to leave. He took off at a run and didn't stop until he reached the big playground. Then he came screeching to a halt as it occurred to him, what if they didn't show up? He started walking more slowly coming up with a list of reasons why they wouldn't be there, ranging from they hated him to they left the park for lunch and didn't hear the bells ring. Though David seemed pretty good at predicting when the bells would ring.

When he got to the big dock behind the boathouse no one was there. He tried not to feel disappointed. He told himself it didn't matter. Convinced himself that he wouldn't worry unless the bells chimed again and he had to go back without them. That would suck, having to admit to everyone that they didn't really like him. It happened sometimes. You'd talk to someone for a while and then they'd say thanks but no thanks. Happened to just about everyone at least once.

So he settled himself on the dock near the edge of the water line, lying on his stomach with his head hanging over the side so that he could watch the goings on in the mud and reeds and two inches of water. After a time vibrations in the wood told him of approaching footsteps. He didn't dare look up in case it wasn't them, and he didn't really breath freely until they sat down on either side of him. Molly peered between her feet at the water below. "What's down there," she asked.

"Nothing now," he answered. "You've scared them all away. Used to be newts I think. And those bugs that run on top of the water. I like those. I'd like to run on top of the water but I'm already too heavy."

"Do you know what those bugs are called?" David asked.

"No."

Raven looked up at him expectantly, but David only shrugged. "I don't either. I was hoping you knew."

"Any toads?" Molly asked.

"No, not today," Raven mumbled looking back down at the water. The disappointment was almost crushing him. This was going to be the thanks but no thanks talk. "Teacher told you about me fighting with Wolf?"

Molly put her hand on his back, urging him to sit up. He sat up but didn't stop looking at the water. "Yeah, she did. It's good that you want to protect the animals Raven, but you can't do it by fighting."

"I know."

"I suppose everyone's been telling you that lately. Have you ever fought with anyone else? Maybe times the teachers didn't catch you?"

"No." His answers were getting shorter and more sullen. He wished they would just get it over with.

David put his hand on Raven's knee and shook it a little to get him to look up. "We're not saying no, Raven. We just need to know you won't do it again."

That took a second to sink in and when it did Raven couldn't hold back a big grin. "Wait, really? I won't do it again, I promise."

Molly and David looked at each other over the top of Raven's head. He kept swiveling back and forth to see them both. "Are you sure you're ready for this?" She asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"A boy." Molly looked down at him and then back up to David. "We're going to need boy stuff."

David laughed. "And don't they know it. That's why the entry path is lined with vendors. Why don't you start there. We'll go tell his teacher and then catch up to you." They split up and David held Raven's hand as they walked back to the meeting place. They were walking under the trees when David stopped abruptly. "I'm sorry, we never actually asked you, did we? Do you want to come home with us?"

Raven looked around the park for a minute. That was the most important question anyone had ever asked him and he knew it deserved a thoughtful answer. For months he'd been living on the edge of his whole world being about to change. At first he'd been terrified of that. But he'd been living with the idea of it for so long now that the anticipation of it had become sort of normal. And now it was really here and if he said yes he'd really have to do it. And if he said no? Well he'd probably have to do it eventually anyway but he'd get to live with the normalcy of the anticipation a little while longer. He looked up at David who was waiting patiently. "Yes please."

David smiled. "Whew. That's a relief. For a second there I was worried what I would say to Molly if you said no."

They continued on. David met with the teacher while Raven said goodbye to the kids who were loitering around. It wasn't a check-in time so there weren't many around, but then his real friends had all been gone for months. Even the Herons, who finally got to be together again while they were at Market, had found families already. So there wasn't much for him to do but let the teacher hug him and tell him to be a good boy.

After that they walked straight up the path to the clock tower, which was the most direct route to the Family Gate. When they got to the arches Raven stopped for a second, doing a little circle to look out in each direction, remembering Raven2's tour on his first day here. She had been a good friend, he loved her, he wondered if he'd ever see her again.

David waited patiently for Raven to take his hand again, but before he moved on he asked, "Are you ok?"

"You once said you were pretty sure that I would grow to love my parents. Do you still think that's true?"

"Especially now I think it's true."

"I'll try not to be too difficult," Raven promised.

David grimaced. "I'm going to have to watch what I say around you, aren't I? I want you to be how you are. You're a smart boy and you have a lot of questions in your head. It does no good to keep them all in. And you can remind me I said that when I get frustrated with you."

Raven wasn't sure he'd do that, but he did have one question he was dying to ask. "Does this mean I get to ride in your basket now?"

"Yeah, I suppose it does," David answered. He strode off and with his long legs Raven had to trot to keep up. "Let's go find Molly and make sure she hasn't filled it up with stuff yet. Oh, though I guess she'll have to be Mom now. And that makes me Dad, yikes. That'll take a bit of getting used to." David rambled on, but Raven had stopped listening. He was going to ride in a wheelie basket out through the Family Gate of the Market. Everything that he'd known, for his entire life, was behind him now. And everything that was new was in front of him. What stories there were of the Market – and there weren't many, but what ones existed Jenny found because he kept asking – were always happily ever after stories. A kid found his family and then they lived happily ever after, the end. Stupid stories. How could this be the end when he felt like everything was about to happen as soon as he crossed the Gate?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as a writing exercise I had asked my sister to send me a photograph and I would build a story around it assuming that the photo was not the culmination, but the center. What happened to lead up to this moment and what did this moment lead to? Here is the photo she sent:
> 
> I'm pretty sure this is not the story she was expecting. She thought it would be a short story for one. She also said after that she was expecting me to incorporate the writing on the path, but I hadn't even seen the writing, I was just transfixed by this little boy in the basket. It took a couple of days of thinking about it before I realized he's being bought. I decided right away that I wanted that to be a normal thing, a happy thing. And so I set out to build a world and a situation that lead to this moment being one of the best moments in this boy's life.


	13. Chapter 13

By the time they got to David and Molly's car at the end of the afternoon Raven was exhausted. It had taken even longer to check out through the Family Gate than it did to check in through the nursery building. Then they went shopping because Molly had decided that the people selling stuff in the Market didn't have quite the right stuff. They let him ride in the basket for the few blocks it took to get to the shopping area. He gripped the bars of the basket with white knuckles as he looked out at the traffic and the people and the action. Even the shopping area, which didn't have any cars in the street at all, still felt overwhelming. He would have happily stayed in the basket except they needed to fill it up with all the stuff they were buying. He liked the shoe store. There was nothing but shoes in it and he got to try on lots of pairs before they picked which ones he would keep. That was the first time he realized that he wouldn't have to share. They would be his shoes.

The clothing store he didn't like at all. The racks were all too close together and too tall and he felt like the shirts were all reaching out to grab him. Who cared if he'd get to wear his favorite shirt any time he wanted. None of these shirts would ever be his favorite, they all hated him. Early on Molly had dropped his hand so she could look through the racks and he had a hard time keeping sight of her. He thought he heard David's voice so he turned the other way and when he turned back she was gone. Panic gripped him. If the shirts had gotten Molly how would he survive? He crouched down in a ball to try to get out of their reach. He didn't move and wasn't even aware of what was going on until he felt David pick him up. He wrapped his arms and legs around him and clung on tightly while David whispered in his ear. "Shh, it's ok, I've got you, it's ok. Come on, come sit with me on the dad bench." He felt David sit down, but didn't relax his grip. "Dads aren't very good shoppers so we have to wait over here. You can stay here with me." David levered a bit of space between them and used his thumb to wipe Raven's tears from his cheeks. "It's ok."

Raven took a few gulping breaths, sure that David wouldn't like this news. "It's not. The shirts ate Molly."

"No, she's right there." David picked him up so he was standing on his knees and then turned him around so he could look. And there she was, poking through the racks as though nothing had happened. "See? She's ok. Everything's ok." And he could see. The shirts hadn't got her at all, he'd just lost sight of her. As much of a relief as that was he suddenly felt stupid.

When they finally got done with trying on and buying clothes – none of which would ever be his favorite – they rewarded him with a stop at the book store. He thought that might be the best place ever. He used to think the library in his barracks was pretty good, but he could count all those books. He did once, after he'd gotten Jenny to tell him what came after a hundred. There were 142, but it took him all evening to count them because Dove kept trying to talk to him, making him lose his place. He was sure, no matter how much time he had he'd never be able to count all these books. He couldn't have them all, of course, but David helped him pick out a handful after Molly had wandered off. She came back a little while later and handed a book to David. "We probably should have thought of this before now, but we can't keep calling him Raven."

That made Raven look up sharply. What? He thought about asking them what they were talking about but he feared he might have been too difficult already today. David was thumbing through the pages of the book. "How about Micah?" He asked.

"No. Too old." Molly responded.

"Gareth?"

"Too tribal. I like my dad's name," she countered.

"But your dad's got your dad's name. How about Edward?"

"Too common."

"Afya?"

"Give me that!" She pulled the book from his hands and he laughed.

He looked down at Raven with a wink. Raven stared back at him wide-eyed. "Oh." David folded his legs up to sit cross-legged on the floor facing him. "You know you get a family name now, right? A proper name, not just an animal and a number, a regular name all your own." Raven stared back at him speechless. "Did you not notice all the kids at the Market that had parents had names too?" Raven blinked and nodded. Now that David mentioned it he did notice. "Do you have a name you like? Maybe a favorite character in a book or something?" Raven shook his head.

"What about Sam?" Molly offered. "Easy to spell, not popular, but not weird."

"Yeah, Sam's ok." David looked from Molly back to Raven. "What do you think?" Raven shrugged. "If you don't like it you can say so. You'll have this name for the rest of your life."

"Can I see it?" Raven asked quietly. Molly squatted down and pointed out the name in the book. He silently formed each of the letters with his lips. He probably could recognize it if he saw it again. He wasn't sure he wanted to stop being Raven though. "Sam's ok."

"But you're not happy," Molly prompted.

He took a deep breath and risked a question. "I have to stop being Raven29?"

"Well, no. You'll be both," Molly explained. "Your full name would be Sam Raven and then your whole number. Sorry, I don't remember your number. Just like I'm Molly Puma09264604 and David is really David Osprey09304237."

"But you said no one calls you Osprey30 anymore."

"Well, no. No one does. But I still use both names. I'm not the only David in the world, you need both names to be unique." Raven chewed on his bottom lip while he thought about that. David reached into is pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to a card in the window with his picture on it. He pointed to some words. "Look. David. Osprey. That's me. You won't stop being Raven, you'll just be Sam Raven. Ok?"

They waited for him to respond, David watching him and Molly nodding her head encouragingly. "Ok," he said and they both smiled.

They gave up on shopping after that and walked through the city back to the car, Raven clutching convulsively at David's hand, terrified that he would lose them again. They got to the car without incident and David buckled him into a booster seat while Molly put all their stuff into the trunk. "Are you sure we installed this thing right?" David called out to her. "They're not safe if you don't do them right."

"If you weren't too much of a man to look at the directions you'd know we did it right. Stop fussing."

David winked at him before climbing in behind the wheel to drive away. Raven fought to stay awake, but it was a losing battle. Finally he compromised thinking he'd close his eyes and listen to them talk. Even that didn't last and he drifted off into a dream of shirts chasing him on the jungle gym. He was relieved when voices broke through and the dream drifted off to darkness. "Sam, wake up, we're here. Sam." A hand shook his shoulder. "Raven!"

His eyes flew open and he could see David leaning over unbuckling him from the booster seat. "Sorry."

"It's all right. It'll be hard enough to remember when you're awake. Come on, it's been a long day. Let's go in."

Home, like Family, had been one of those things he'd been taught to want without ever being given any specifics. The more he talked to Jenny the more confused he was about whether home was an actual place or more of a feeling about a place. David and Molly's home seemed nice. They took him around and showed him all the rooms. He had his own bedroom. It was only big enough for the one bed, yet it felt achingly empty without his five bunkmates in it. Molly helped him put all his new stuff away while David cooked dinner. Dinner was ok. It didn't taste bad, it was just different from anything he'd ever eaten before. He decided only difficult kids complained about strange food. So he politely ate everything they gave him while wondering if he wouldn't get dessert because of eating with the adults. In the end they took him into the back yard and gave him a popsicle. He decided his favorite room was the Family Room. It seemed odd to him that one specific room was designated for the family when it didn't seem like there were any rooms he wasn't allowed in. Still he thought the family room might be the one he spent the most time in. It had a whole wall that was full of books. Grown up books, David said, but still. And it had the biggest TV he'd ever seen. And in the corner there was a chest full of toys. Molly apologized saying most of the toys were from when she was a girl and that's why there were so many dolls. He didn't mind, except he didn't play with any because he was too tired. So they took him back to his room, checked to make sure he knew how to brush his teeth, read him a story, and tucked him into bed. He thought he might have cried at having no one to whisper to in the dark, but he fell asleep before he had a chance to.


	14. Chapter 14

It was several days before they stopped looking startled every time he walked into a room. At first he wondered if he wasn't supposed to leave whatever room they'd left him in, but they never said so and he didn't get in trouble for it. He was being very careful to do nothing he could possibly get in trouble for. It was kind of tiring trying to always be good in an environment where he wasn't entirely sure what the rules were. When he'd gotten to the big kids barracks he had eleven other kids in his cohort to tell him what he needed to know. Now he wasn't even sure that David and Molly knew. It's not that they were changing the rules on him, just that they would be surprised by things he did or said and it would occur to them that maybe they should make a rule.

They lived in a quiet part of the city up in the hills and in the evenings they liked to sit on the back porch and talk. That was good. They'd give him a popsicle and let him play in the yard. There weren't a lot of animals in the yard, but sometimes there were butterflies and at night there were fireflies. Molly had several bird feeders that she would fill too. Once it started getting dark he settled with a flashlight on the bottom step of the porch. Above him they talked.

"You know, I wanted to be a mother for so long and now that it's finally happened… I don't know… I don't regret it, but …" she drifted off, unable to find the end to that sentence.

"I think we all need a little time to adjust."

"He wasn't what I was expecting."

"Sam specifically or motherhood?"

"I don't know. He's so quiet and then when he does talk all he does is ask questions."

"He's still trying to figure things out."

"Sally made it look so easy. When she brought Donna home and instantly they were baking cookies and playing with dolls and doing her hair. Sam hardly even has any hair."

"I'm drawing the line, you will not put pigtails in my son's hair even when it does grow out," David said in that mock stern voice that he was getting used to. David dropped his voice, but not soft enough to prevent him from hearing. "Would you rather we'd gotten a girl?"

"Not any of the ones we met, no. I like him, it's just… Donna is so affectionate and Sam is so shy."

"Have you let him know you want to be hugged?"

"Are you kidding? I see how clingy he is with you. I think that would drive me crazy."

"Well then. How can you expect him to give you what you want when you haven't even figured out it out for yourself?"

"Why is this so much easier for you?"

"I don't know that it is."

"Aren't fathers and sons supposed to play catch and stuff like that?"

"He doesn't seem to want to."

"Good for you then. Otherwise you'd have to admit that you couldn't throw a ball to save your life."

"Hey now."

"You didn't even want to be a father."

"I never said that."

"You did."

"Ok, maybe I did. What I meant was I didn't need to be a father. I was content with all the love I could get from you. I felt complete. That doesn't mean there's not room in my life for more. And I don't think loving him will prevent me from loving you just as much as I do." They stopped talking but he didn't look up because it sounded like they might be kissing and he didn't want to see that.

Eventually Molly said, "You know your mother has called me every day this week."

"Tell her no."

"I did. She started crying about wanting to meet her grandson."

"Crocodile tears, you have to be strong with my mother. Because you know how she is, she doesn't do anything half way. If we tell her we're coming it'll turn into a party. It won't just be her and Dad, she'll invite Roger and his whole crew, and aunts and uncles and cousins. She'll call your mother and get everyone from your side to come. A great party, but utter chaos. If he's still adjusting to us the last thing I want to do is thrust him into the entire extended family all at once."

"I told her she needed to talk to you. But you know she has got a point. A little at a time, yes, but he should meet our first families."

"We just won't tell her we're coming so she can't plan anything. Maybe my folks on Saturday and yours on Sunday?"

"That'll work. What's he doing down there anyway?"

"I don't know."

"Who sits in the dark playing with a flashlight?"

"Our son."

"Well, bring him in, it's bedtime."

A second later he heard the screen door slam and David came down the stairs and sat next to him. "Don't you slam the door, ok Sam?"

"Ok."

"What are you doing anyway?"

"Pretending I'm a firefly."

"Is it working? Are the other fireflies coming over to check you out."

"No. I think I'm supposed to move around more. They never blink in the same place twice." He trained the light on his arm and then moved his arm next to David's so he could light them both. "I'm sorry I'm not quite right."

David covered up his arm with his hand. "Don't ever think that. No two people look exactly alike, and you wouldn't want them to anyway. You're just fine how you are."

"But I'm not a girl."

"We didn't want a girl, we wanted you."

"Maybe you just didn't meet the right one. Maybe your daughter is back there at the Market waiting for you and now you'll never come."

"Are you thinking we made a mistake? Are you wishing we hadn't picked you?"

"No." He didn't really know what he wished for. "Da- Dad?"

"You can call me David if it makes you more comfortable."

He shook his head. "What happens if we did make a mistake?"

"We didn't, I'm sure of it." David stood up and took his hand. "Come on we'll get in trouble if we stay out here much longer. And I know you were listening, and don't you dare stop hugging me because of what we said. It's good to be a thinker, but I worry that you might think too much sometimes."

David might have had a point. It took him forever to fall asleep that night, thinking about how to stop himself from thinking too much.


	15. Chapter 15

The first time Molly suggested going to the park Sam panicked thinking she meant the Market and that they were going to take him back and exchange him for a girl. He wondered briefly if he'd have to give up his name as he'd only just gotten used to thinking of himself that way. But what she'd meant was the little neighborhood park down the road. It turned out his neighborhood was full of kids. Most of them were older by a few years, though they welcomed him readily enough on the swings and the slide. They were the ones who told him all about what school would really be like. They convinced him that even though none of them would be in his class it really would be the kind of place he liked. If nothing else he would finally have other kids around every day.

So he started school full of optimism and it took about two weeks for him to admit how miserable it made him. Admit it to himself, of course. He couldn't possibly tell David or Molly. He wanted them to teach him how to properly read, but all they ever did was look at letters not words. They were learning to count; they'd gotten as far as ten. During the numbers lessons he would amuse himself by counting things in the classroom. There was one teacher, fifteen students, twelve panes of glass in the windows, thirty-six ceiling tiles. He couldn't manage to count the squares of linoleum in the floor because he couldn't see them all. The problem was the teacher would call on him sometimes and he wouldn't have heard the question so he'd just give her the number of whatever he happened to be counting. So far that had never been the right answer. They were learning colors and animals and shapes and he thought, if they could just get back to reading all the rest of this stuff could be learned in books. They were in all the books he'd read in the nursery.

In the third week they sent him home with a note. He tried to read it, but apart from his own name there were no useful words that he recognized. He figured out that it was bad news when they closed the door so he couldn't hear them talking after dinner. The next day when he was out on the fields doing after school sports he saw the car pull up to the parking lot. Because he stopped to look, everyone around him stopped to see what he was looking at. That resulted in a chorus of "Sammy's in trouble." He clenched his fists. He would not fight, but oh he wanted make them shut up. He kicked the ball as hard as he could instead.

They didn't really talk to him when they came back out, just told him to get in the car. David buckled him in and then slammed the door. David never slammed doors. That instant of noise was more shocking to him than the silent car ride back to the house. When they got home they sent him to his room and he practically ran just to escape the tension they were radiating. He thought they would be right behind him, but they left him alone for a few minutes. He sat down on his bed and picked up his favorite book, Tony the Troubled Tricycle, which had been wedged under his pillow. They were working on Ts today in class so he started counting them up. There were a lot in this book. He was up to 57 when David arrived. He stood in the doorway leaning against the frame with his arms crossed.

"Do you know why we're angry?" Sam shook his head. "What's wrong at school?" Sam shrugged. "Oh, no. You do not get to the point of the teacher calling us in without knowing there's something wrong. So what is it?"

"I'm not doing very well."

"I'll say, but why?" Sam really didn't know what to say so he just shrugged again. David shook his head, reached out for the desk chair, set it in front of the bed, and sat. Even in the low, child sized chair he hovered over Sam. "They accused me of doing your homework for you because every question you turn in is right but every question you answer in class is wrong. Do you know how embarrassing that was? You're not stupid, and yet you're failing first grade. How do you fail first grade? I'll tell you how, by not trying, that's how. What's wrong with you?"

Sam panicked. He thought just saying he didn't like school would probably make David even more mad. He just didn't know how to say what was wrong. David gave up waiting for an answer. "What did you do in school today?"

"The letter T. There are five kids in my class with T names."

"You learned that?"

"Um, not exactly. We did worksheets. We just had to know what it looked like. And we practiced counting backwards from 10."

"So what was the problem with that? You know how to count backwards. "

Sam shrugged again and fiddled with the book in his lap. His finger was still marking the page that he'd left off on. "There's 57 Ts so far in this book," he offered even though it didn't really answer any of David's questions.

David stared at him for a minute and then looked over his shoulder to where Molly had arrived in the doorway. "He's bored. Well isn't that just perfect." Sam thought David should sound more pleased if that were perfect. But when David turned back he looked just as angry as when he'd first walked in. "You know what Sam? I don't care that you're bored. We all have responsibilities: Mom goes to work, and I go to work, and you go to school. And we all do our best when we're there. If you found school difficult, if you were doing your best and having trouble, I could help you. But there's nothing to help here, you just need to get your head out of the clouds. No more counting up kids names, you do whatever it is the teacher wants you to be doing."

Molly came in and put her hand on David's shoulder. "Aren't you being a little hard on him?"

"No, I'm not," David said, standing up to face her. He looked back over his shoulder. "My mother said he reminded her of me." Sam smiled; he wanted to be like David. But on his way out David added, "I don't see it. I always tried."

After he was gone Molly sat down on the bed for a second. "Dinner's in half an hour."

"I'm not hungry," Sam whispered.

"Come down anyway. No one goes to bed without supper in this family."

He looked up at her, eyes full of unshed tears. "I'm sorry."

"I know. And so does he. Just prove to him you can do your best and it'll all be ok."


	16. Chapter 16

One Saturday Sam sat on the back steps leaning back so that he could watch the clouds scuttle across the sky. He wasn't sure how long he'd been out there when he heard the screen door slam and Molly call out, "Yeah, he's back here, with his head in the clouds again, like usual." He winced, wondering how she could tell what he'd been doing. He expected her to come scold him for it, but the door slammed again and she never did. A few minutes later though David came along the side of the house and joined him on the steps.

"Sorry," he said quickly.

"What for?"

"You said I should keep my head out of the clouds."

David slipped his thumb and forefinger under the rim of his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well, yeah, but I only meant in school. Daydreaming on a Saturday morning sounds like a fine way to spend your time. What were you thinking about?"

"I was looking at the clouds. There was one that looked like a butterfly, and one that looked like an ice cream cone, and one that looked like a dragon breathing fire. Well, it looked like a dragon and then a plane flew by coming right out of his mouth."

David chuckled and leaned back so he could look up too. "What do you see now?"

He looked around the sky thinking about it. "There's one that kind of looks like a sailboat."

"There's one that looks like a microscope," David said pointing up.

"A what?"

"A microscope, like the one I have in the den."

Sam looked up but none of the clouds looked like anything he remembered seeing in the den. On the other hand he hadn't been in the den since the day he arrived. They never told him he couldn't it just didn't seem like he should.

"I'll show you later. It's not a toy, but I think you'll like it."

Sam studied the clouds. "Which one?"

"Nah, it's blown away now." David looked down and studied Sam the way he'd been studying the clouds. "You don't spend much time in the house. Why is that?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't know. I like it out here."

"Sometimes I get the feeling that you still think of it as my house and Mom's house and you don't think of it as your house at all. Is that true?"

"It is your house, yours and Molly's."

"Yes, but it's your house too. You're not a guest here. This is your home now."

He took a deep breath, wondering if he should admit his concern. "Molly knows where everything goes."

"Well, yes, she's very organized. It's good. Nothing is ever lost because she knows where it is. We never run out of stuff and she keeps us on time for things. But Sam that doesn't mean you can't play with your toys. Just, ya know, don't leave them laying around when you're done. It'll never feel like home if you never come inside."

"Ok," Sam agreed, though he didn't think he'd be going inside any time soon.

David reached out and draped his arm across Sam's shoulder. "In your own time." They sat like that for a few minutes. Not talking, just sitting and watching the clouds race across the sky. It felt good, like maybe he really wasn't in trouble anymore.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I have a hug?"

"Yeah." David pulled him around so he stood between his knees and hugged him. "Did you feel like you couldn't have a hug before?" Sam shrugged not really wanting to answer. "I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I tried not to."

"You said never go to bed angry and then you hugged me," Sam whispered. "But it didn't feel good. It felt ... I don't know… like you didn't really want to."

David hugged him again and then without letting go whispered, "Does that feel better?" Sam nodded against his shoulder. "Good," David said pulling back. "Do you want to go for a ride?"

Sam wanted to ask where but instead said, "Um, ok."

"It's apple season. You know how strawberries were in season when we met? Apples are in season now. I thought we'd go out to the orchard and maybe pick our own. What do you think?"

"Just you and me?"

"Mom's got stuff to do this afternoon. She said she didn't have time."

Sam smiled. It's not that he didn't want Molly to come, just that he liked the idea of doing something alone with Dad. It was a long drive out of the city into the hills. They passed the time singing silly songs about going to grandmother's house. When they got there Dad kept being silly, juggling with apples he picked up off the ground, and making funny faces and making him laugh. When they were done picking they got to go into the big barn where the presses were making cider. He even got to have a taste.

Then, because Dad seemed to know the owner, they got the best treat of all. They got to go to a little room in the back of the barn where there was a big, beautiful golden retriever who had just had puppies; the smallest puppies Sam had ever seen. "Why are they so small?" Sam asked, his voice full of awe.

"Because they're puppies. Just like some day you'll be as big as I am but now you're not. And when you were a baby you were even smaller."

"Is that their mommy?" Sam asked. Dad nodded. "Did she have to go to the Market to get them?"

Behind them the orchard man laughed. "Always the difficult questions with you," Dad observed.

"Sorry," he said in a small voice.

"No, that's all right. I just have to think of a way to answer that you'll understand. She didn't go to Market for them, she had them all on her own. Well not all on her own. Dogs are different than people."

The orchard man was still laughing. "They'll be weaned in about 6 weeks. Should I call you?"

"I'll have to talk to Molly, but yeah give a call."

"What's that mean Dad?"

"Weaned?" Sam nodded. "Oof. Um, right now they're too young to eat by themselves. So their mother gives them milk to drink. See that one there? That's what he's doing. When they're weaned they're big enough and strong enough to eat solid food."

"Is that like what makes them different from cats?"

"No, cats do that too. More like what makes them different from frogs."

"Oh, ok," Sam said, pretending he understood even though he was pretty sure he didn't.

"He really is too smart for his own good," the orchard man said.

"Yeah, I love being a dad."

Later, when they were walking back to the car each carrying a bag of apples Sam looked up and asked, "Do you really?"

"Really what?"

"Love being a dad, even though you didn't really want to be one, and I'm difficult?"

"You ask difficult questions, that's not the same as being difficult." He paused to put the apples into the trunk of the car and then picked Sam up so he was standing on the back bumper. It put them almost eye to eye. "Of course I love being a dad, Sam. I love you."

"Really? Already?"

"Yeah already. Don't feel like you have to force it. It comes to everyone in their own time." They stood looking at each other for a few seconds. "Ok?" Sam nodded. "Ok then." Dad picked him up and spun him around twice on his way down to the ground. "Let's go home and see if we can talk Mom into having an apple pie for dessert tonight."


	17. Chapter 17

Much to Sam's surprise and delight two months later all three of them piled in the car and went back to the orchard. At first he thought they were just getting more apples because they had run out. The car ride wasn't quite as silly as it had been the first time, but they did at least sing the grandmother song when they went over the wooden bridge and the road bent through the trees. As soon as they got there the orchard man brought them to the little back room to see the puppies. Only this time they were so much bigger. Not nearly as big as the momma dog, but also not remotely the tiny little things he'd seen the first time. They let him sit on the floor and play with them for quite a long time while the adults went off to the side of the room and talked.

He was working out in his head how to ask if they could come back and play with the puppies again sometime when the adults came back to him. Before he got a chance to ask though they told him he could keep one. It had never entered his mind that Molly would let him have a dog, but on the car ride home she started telling stories about the family dog they'd had when she was a girl. They told him if he was going to have a dog he was going to have to be responsible for it, feeding her and brushing her and taking her for walks. He eagerly promised to do all that. He thought taking the dog for a walk every day sounded like a treat, not a chore. They even let him pick her name. He named her Dove. He figured his old best friend had a new name by now and wouldn't mind if he used his old name for his new best friend.

Winter came and with it cold and wet weather. It made for shorter walks because he wasn't big enough to walk Dove alone and neither of his parents seemed interested in going farther than around the block. But he and Dove could still play in the back yard as much as he wanted. That was easier than playing in the house where he felt like both of them had more energy than could be contained within the walls of the family room. Already once Dove's tail had knocked over a lamp in the living room. They'd both gotten scolded for that and shortly after Molly started taking Dove to puppy class. Sam decided the easiest way to stay on Molly's good side was to stay away from things that could break.

Eventually even Sam got cold and had to come in. He very carefully took off his boots by the door. Tracking muddy boots through the house was a quick way to annoy Molly. Easier to take his boots off then to have to clean up after. He learned that the hard way once when Molly pulled him back to the kitchen and pointed out the trail he'd left behind. He tried to suggest that maybe it was Dad? Until she took one of Dad's big boots and dropped it down next to the half sized print on the floor. Dove was already up in his room by the time he shed all his wet things and went running up after her.

Ten minutes later he heard Molly shout, "Sam! Get down here and clean up after your dog."

Sam shot Dove a look. "Always getting me in trouble," he grumbled, heading off downstairs. "I took my boots off at the door," he said as he reached where she was standing in the kitchen doorway. There were paw prints everywhere.

"Ah, so you knew that your feet would be wet and it didn't occur to you that hers would be too? For such a smart boy sometimes you just don't think. Why do you suppose we keep the towel just for her by the door?"

"Sorry," Sam said and set about cleaning up the mess. Dad passed through, but Sam knew better than to look to him for relief from this task. He got himself a drink and continued on out. When Sam was done he put the cleaning stuff away and washed his hands.

"Thank you Sam," Molly said and tried to hug him as he passed by on his way out, but he just kept walking.

He went back to his room and sat on his floor brushing Dove. That too was one of his chores, but he found that grooming her actually relaxed him. And she loved it. She would sit still for him for however long he would keep it up. It didn't take long for Molly to follow him up and settle on his floor next to him. "You know Sam, I don't like being the bad guy. I don't like always being the one to yell at you." It seemed to him like all she would have to do then is not yell at him and they'd both be happier, but he didn't say anything. "If you like living in a nice house though, then we all have to contribute to keeping it that way. It can't always be me."

There wasn't much for Sam to say to that either so he just kept grooming Dove. Nothing seemed to be going well. He remembered the conversation of theirs that he'd overheard when he first arrived. He wasn't quite right but David seemed to think that they would all adjust and everything would be fine. It didn't feel fine though. It felt like he was always in trouble, always doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing. He had a question, but Molly didn't really like it when he asked questions and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know the answer anyway.

"What's wrong?" she asked, drawing it out of him.

"Are you going to send me back?"

"For making a mess? I'm not mad at you for making a mess, messes happen. I would just like to not be the only who ever cleans them up."

"For being not quite right," Sam clarified.

Molly sighed. "Of course we're not going to send you back. Families are forever. They're not usually perfect, but you just keep trying until you get it right. Sometimes I wonder if you even know that I love you."

Sam looked up at her. Why would she? "But I'm messy. And I ask too many questions. And I'm smart, but I don't think."

She looked down at him with a little smile that he couldn't quite figure out. "Who do you suppose is the person I love most in the whole wide world?"

That was an easy question. "Dad."

"And do you know who's the smartest person I've ever met?" Sam shook his head. "Dad." That wasn't too surprising, Dad knew the answers to an awful lot of questions. "How do you suppose he got to be so smart?" Sam had no idea. "He asks questions all the time. You might not notice because usually he's asking other people, or himself, but he's always trying to figure things out. That's why sometimes he's a little distracted, because he's thinking." Sam giggled and they shared a little laugh. They'd both noticed that. "And have you ever really looked at him? On a good day his socks match and his hair isn't standing up until he gets home from work instead of before he leaves the house."

"That's one of the first things I noticed about him," Sam admitted. "He looked like he'd just woken up from a nap." Molly laughed and it felt good to share a secret with her. Because he would never tell Dad that, and he felt sure Molly wouldn't either.

"He usually does on a Saturday, and yet I've never seen him take a nap." She shifted around a bit to face him better and held his hand in hers. "Sam, if I can love him even though he's messy and smart and asks a lot of questions, what makes you think I can't love you?"

He didn't have an answer to that because maybe she could. This time he let her hug him before she left.


	18. Chapter 18

Over the winter Sam got the biggest scare of his short life. He was in class trying, really honestly trying, to pay attention but he couldn't seem to manage it. It wasn't even that his mind was wandering away from what they were doing, which tended to happen when he was bored. More that he couldn't get it moving at all. They were talking about stuff and he couldn't quite figure it out. He didn't like that feeling one bit. Earlier in the day one of his classmates had thrown up and got sent off to the school nurse. A ripple of panic went through everyone at that, even after the teacher insisted that he'd be back in a few days. Sam didn't make the connection between John puking and his own discomfort, but when the teacher finally noticed him she sent him to the nurse too. The nurse didn't really didn't do anything other than sit him in the corner of her somewhat crowded exam room and call his Dad to come get him. Shockingly, when Dad showed up she yelled at him. "Keep him home when he doesn't feel good!"

"Yes ma'am," Dad answered, taking his hand and leading him out. "Come on kiddo, let's get you home."

They got all the way home, but only half way down the hallway before Sam too threw up. He stood there miserably. "Oh, Molly's gonna hate that."

"No, it's ok. That's not the kind of mess Mom's going to get mad about. I'll take care of it anyway, but let's get you to bed first." Dad scooped him up and brought him to his room.

It was the most horrible afternoon. He'd never been sick before and thought maybe he was dying. He threw up at least three more times – he sort of lost count – but at least made it to the bathroom every time. It was easier now that he knew what that feeling meant was coming. Molly came in to check on him when she got home from work. She didn't stay, simply kissed him on his forehead and then tiptoed back out. He was so relieved when they didn't make him come down to dinner. Just the thought of food made his stomach heave.

They both came up in the evening. David pulled out the desk chair but then changed his mind and sat on the edge of the bed. He put his hand on Sam's forehead and then the side of his face. His big dad hand could cover most of his face at once and it made him giggle. "Are you feeling better?"

He was desperately afraid of being sick and wanted to say yes. Really, he hadn't thrown up in a couple of hours. But unless he outright lied to them he couldn't say he felt good. He hedged and said, "Maybe."

"What is it?" Molly asked.

He didn't know, but Dad answered for him. "Just the flu, I think. Looked like it was going around school. The nurse's office was packed."

"Am I going to have to go to the sick kids barracks?"

"No. You're sick, but you're not that sick. And anyway, the sick barracks are for nursery kids. You're in a family now. If you got sick enough to need help you'd go to a hospital."

"But if I'm sick that's bad."

"Well it certainly doesn't feel good right now, but there are lots of things you might be sick with and not all of them are dangerous or serious."

"Like asthma?"

"I suppose. Who has asthma?"

"One of Pike's friends had asthma but she yelled at me when I said he was sick. And they never did take him away so maybe he wasn't really sick."

"The thing is people get sick all the time. Sometimes you can get better mostly on your own. Like you right now. You caught a virus and your body fought it off. It doesn't feel so good while that's happening, but in the end your body wins and then you're better. Sometimes you get sick with something that you need help getting better from. Then you go to the hospital and the doctors help you get better. They give you medicine. Did your friend with asthma have medicine?"

"He breathed in a tube, but he didn't go to the hospital for it."

"Are you sure you want to get into this with him?" Molly interrupted.

"He caught the flu and he's afraid he's going to get taken away. Yes I want to get into this with him; glossing over it certainly hasn't helped. I'll keep it simple." He sighed and looked back at Sam. "He probably went to the sick barracks once, and they figured out what he needed, and then they made sure he always had it with him. You must have known kids who went to the sick barracks and then came back."

Sam nodded; that had happened. Then he shook his head and whispered, "Not all of them came back."

Molly sank down into the chair. "You knew someone with the Plague?" Sam shrugged. He didn't know that word. "David, is that possible?"

"Yeah. It's pretty rare, but it still happens. We haven't found a cure, we've just got it mostly contained. Who was it Sam? Who didn't come back?"

"Wolf."

"Is that the one who was throwing stones at the toads?" Sam nodded. "What was she doing when they took her away?"

"Picking on Fox." Molly sucked in a breath. "What's the plague?"

Molly and Dad looked at each other for a while and when Dad turned back to him he shook his head. "I'm sorry Sam, I can't think of a simple answer to that. It's like learning to read. You don't start with the big complicated words. You start with letters and then you learn little words and then you learn the big words. It's going to takes years before you've learned enough for any answer I give you to make sense."

Sam chewed on his bottom lip while he thought about that. He was a little sick but was already starting to feel better. Pike's friend was sick but they gave him something that made him better. Wolf had the plague, and whatever that was they weren't going to tell him but it scared them. And it sounded like she wasn't going to get better no matter what Jenny said. He'd gotten his flu at school, which means you could get sick from other people. And he knew Wolf. "Am I going to catch the plague?"

"No. Absolutely not," Dad said in his stern voice. "The plague is something you're born with it just takes us a little while to know whether or not you've got it. You're old enough now, we know that you don't. And I don't, and Mom doesn't. I might end up catching your flu, but none of us will catch the plague."

The next day they kept Sam home from school. They didn't even wake him up for breakfast. He didn't realize at all until he woke up on his own and wandered downstairs to find that Molly was gone. Dad was in the den hunched over his microscope, scribbling notes with one hand, and running his other hand backwards through his hair. He stood in the doorway. "I'm feeling much better. I could go to school," he announced.

Dad looked up. "And have the nurse yell at me again? No thanks," he said with a wink.

They got him some breakfast and then after that Dad went back to his microscope and Sam sat at his desk in the den drawing pictures. He started out with the usual: pictures of him and Dad and Molly, pictures of the house, pictures of Dove the Dog. Eventually he started drawing pictures of the things Dad let him look at through the microscope: his hair, and his fingerprint, the wing of the dead fly they'd found between the screens of the window. When he'd finished drawing all the things he'd seen through the microscope he looked up. "What are you looking at Dad?"

Dad stretched his back as he swiveled around in his chair to look at him. "That's a little complicated," he said peering over at the pictures strewn across the desk. "Those are pretty good."

"Not finger prints then?"

"No," he said with a chuckle. "I'm looking for ways to keep people from getting sick."

"Are you a doctor?"

"Not like the kind at the hospital. Maybe over the summer I'll take you into the lab and show you where I work."

"Have you found any? Ways to keep people from getting sick?"

Dad sighed and looked a little sad and it made him wish he hadn't asked. "Not yet. Some problems are really hard to solve. People in my lab have been working on this one for more than a hundred years and we still haven't figured it out."

"You've been at your work for a hundred years?" Sam asked in shock. He knew Dad was old, but somehow he didn't think that old.

Dad laughed. "I've only been there for nine years. People come and go. The work is bigger than any one of us." Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Does that make sense to you?" If he were honest he would have to admit it didn't make any sense at all, so he shook his head. "That's what I mean when I say some answers are complicated. Save it in the back of your mind. It'll make more sense when you're older."


	19. Chapter 19

About a month before school ended the teacher sent him home with a note in a sealed envelope. He wondered if that meant he would have been able to read it. His reading was getting much better, especially now that his teacher was giving him different books to read than she gave everyone else. She gave him the kinds of books that Molly and Dad would read to him before bed. Sometimes he couldn't figure out all the words and what was going on, but it was a lot more fun to try than to be stuck with "See Spot run. Run Spot, run." The Spot books were boring. And who named their dog Spot anyway?

Dad and Dove met him at the bus stop at the end of the day and they took the long way home to give Dove a walk. Dad asked him what he did in school that day and he talked about the book he was reading, and the clay pot he was working on in art class, and the goal he'd managed to score in after school soccer, and he sang the new song they learned in music class. He talked and talked and talked, never managing to get around to the note that felt like it was burning up in his backpack. He stalled further after they got home, going to his room and dumping out the contents of his backpack onto his bed. Finally he took a deep breath, picked up the note and went downstairs. As he'd hoped, Dad was already in the middle of cooking dinner so he handed the note to Molly and then went out back to play with Dove, figuring they were just going to close the door on any conversation they had anyway.

A couple of minutes later Dad came out. He sat on the bench swing under the tree and called Sam over. Sam came, trying not to look as reluctant as he felt. "We've got a half an hour until dinner is ready. Come and tell me about school. And not just everything you did today, but how's it going, really?"

Sam climbed onto the bench and spent some time fussing and settling into position. He sat cross-legged and a bit sideways so that he could look up at Dad, but then fiddled with his shoelaces instead. "I thought it was ok."

"But now because of the note you think you might be in trouble?" Sam nodded without looking up. "What might you be in trouble for?"

Sam gave that a good think. It seemed like such a trick question. He didn't want to bring up something that the note didn't talk about. And he really had been much happier in school lately. Finally he said, "I don't know."

"You don't know because you're not in trouble at all. The note said you're doing very well and she's proud of all the progress you've made. Not all notes are bad news."

"Oh."

"Why did you wait and give the note to Mom?"

He knew the answer to that one but wondered if he should say. "You didn't like the last note I brought home."

"No, I didn't. Did you think Mom wouldn't scold you if it was a bad note?"

"School's not one of the things Molly yells at me for."

Dad harrumphed, "No, she leaves that one for me." He looked over at Sam and eventually said, "I'm going to regret asking this, but I'm curious. Why do you still call her Molly when it's been months since you stopped calling me David?" Sam looked down at his feet and started knotting and unknotting his laces. He hadn't realized that he'd been doing something wrong all this time. Dad reached down, covering his hands with his one big dad hand, stopping him from fussing. "I shouldn't have asked, now you're going to worry about it. There's no right answer to this. Why do you call me Dad?"

"You feel like Dad," he blurted out without thinking. Then he realized how that would sound bad for Molly and covered his mouth to stop anything else from coming out.

"You two really haven't quite connected yet, have you? It's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault. You know she loves you, right?"

Sam nodded. He knew that. "Jenny loved me and she was never Mom."

"Remember, Jenny's a cat. She was never meant to be Mom. The two of you will get there when you get there. I know you, you're going to over think this now. Please try not to," he said looking down at Sam. Then he looked up at the tree branches above them and added to himself, "I should have known better. Curiosity killed the cat."

"But you're not a cat Dad, you're a dog."

"That I am," Dad agreed. He looked down at his watch and then said, "Come on. Dinner's almost ready we should go wash up and set the table."

As they walked in Sam asked, "Will you teach me how to read your watch?"

"I think I'm going to have to. Your teacher thinks you should skip second grade."


	20. Chapter 20

"Oh, look a cardinal," Molly whispered. She always whispered when it was cardinals no matter how far away from the house they were. She wasn't even saying it to him, she seemed to say it whether there was someone around to hear her or not.

Sam pushed the step stool over so he could see out the kitchen window. He liked the cardinals as much as Molly, mostly because they were so easy to spot in the trees. He reached over for the book she kept on the counter. It was full of pictures of birds, all divided up so that birds that were similar in size or color were near each other. He couldn't really read the book, but he liked looking at the pictures. He turned to the cardinal first. That one was about as easy to find in the book as it was in the trees. He looked around the yard at the feeders and in the trees. With him and Dove inside the yard was full of birds. He looked down at the book, trying to match the birds at the closest feeder. There was more than one and they seemed like they should be all the same, but they weren't quite the same color. "Mom? Is this the same as them?" He asked, pointing to a picture in the book.

She looked down at the book. "Yes, very good. Those are goldfinches."

He looked at the word above the picture, but it was a little too long for comfort. Seemed like a good name, mostly. "How come one of them isn't gold?"

"Because she's a female. It's only the males that are bright colors."

"Why?" She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and he bit his lip. Too many questions he thought.

Molly just smiled and said, "Because birds are like that. Cardinals too, see in the tree? On the branch below the bright one there's a dull one? That's the female. That's why there's two pictures in the book." She looked around the yard and then pointed. "See the chickadees? Can you find them in the book?"

He took a good look. He thought he knew chickadees, they were another of Mom's favorites, but he wanted to make sure he had it right before he started flipping through the pages. When he thought he found it he looked back and forth a few times between the picture and the birds to be sure. He knew she was watching him and waiting for him to say he'd found it. She didn't give away whether he'd gotten it right until he felt confident enough to point it out to her. "This one," he said and she smiled. He liked it when she smiled like that. He looked around hoping to see blue jays. Not only could he find them in the book, those were words he could read. Chickadee was another of those that he never got right. There were no blue jays though so Molly had him try for the tufted titmouse. That was a hard one to find. You had to get the tuft right.

He was still looking when Dad came in. He stood behind them and peered over Sam's shoulder to see what he was doing. "You two going to spend all summer looking at the birds?"

"Maybe. There's worse things to do then look at the birds. You're just jealous that we've finally found a hobby of mine that he enjoys."

"I think it's brilliant," Dad whispered in her ear, but he was far too close for Sam not to hear. Sam had found the titmouse in the book but was waiting to say anything so he didn't interrupt them. Dad saw him fingering the picture though and said, "I bet he's got all the backyard birds identified by the end of the month.

"No bet," Molly replied.

"We should go up to the mountains for our summer vacation so you can challenge him with some new birds."

"Really?" Sam asked, forgetting to not interrupt. He looked back and forth between them as they looked at each other. "Can we Mom? Can we?"

She laughed. "'Course we can, sweetie. Especially if your Dad wants to, since a whole week of looking at the birds is not usually his idea of a good time." She raised her eyebrow at him.

"Well, you know. I'll talk to Roger, see if we can borrow his place at the lake so we can swim and kayak and stuff too."

"Hey, we should plan it for his First Family Day, then maybe we can avoid the party."

"Not at Roger's. Mom'll just follow us up there. Not a bad place to have a party though. Plenty of room to spread out and run around. I'll give him a call and see what he says. He's usually back down here by the end of the summer anyway so it ought to work out." He wandered out, patting down his pockets searching for his phone.

Mom and Sam both chuckled, knowing it would take him ten minutes just to find it. "If he had just one place where he put it then he'd always know where to look," she commented. She was probably right, but if you weren't near that place the last time you used it then that didn't really help. He knew better than to say so, especially now when he didn't want to distract her from looking at the birds. "Oh, look, a cardinal," she whispered.


	21. Chapter 21

The vacation in the mountains was great. They arrived on a Saturday giving them a day to settle in before his big First Family Day party on Sunday. Early that morning, before anyone was around, the three of them went down to the dock and sat watching the sun rise over the mountains. "Did you ever wonder why your anniversary came and went and we didn't really say anything?" Mom asked.

"I guess. But then I realized if you're a puma and Dad's an osprey then you had anniversaries too and didn't say anything then either. And then when Grandma and Grandpa came over with that great cake for Dad's first family day I thought maybe it's not so bad to skip your anniversary if you get cake like that for your family day. Will she bring a cake today, do you think?"

"You can always count on Grandma for a cake," Dad promised.

He hadn't even had breakfast yet, but the thought of Grandma's cake made Sam's eyes light up. "Will I get a Second Family Day too?" he asked. He'd been left at Grandma's house one night when Mom and Dad celebrated their second family day.

"Well, eventually," Dad answered. "When you grow up and leave us to start your own family."

He didn't think he'd ever want to leave them, but before he could say so Mom chimed in. "You see Sam, you need to know your anniversary so you know how old you are. But who cares how old you are, really. The day worth celebrating isn't so much the day you were born, it's the day you found the people who love you."

"And the people you love?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, them too," Mom answered.

In the afternoon everyone came up and it was just as crazy as Dad predicted, but that was ok. He liked having all the kids around. He liked most of his cousins even though Donna could be a little bossy and Jim was older than all the other kids and liked to remind everyone of it. They all gave him little gifts, but none were as good as the presents his parents gave him on the dock that morning. Mom gave him a pair of binoculars all his own so that they could both watch the birds at the same time. Dad gave him a CD with the sounds of frogs on it. That seemed a little funny to him at first, but Dad wasn't offended when he laughed. He just said, "Wait, you'll see."

The party was fun, but he liked it best after everyone was gone and it was just the three of them. They did all sorts of things. He liked canoeing best, which was good because he ended up doing it at least twice a day. Once with Dad when they actually would go somewhere, and once with Mom when they would mostly just float and look for herons and osprey and vultures. He felt very important having his own binoculars and being able to find things and point them out to her.

There were also frogs everywhere, more than one kind even. It had been quite a while since he'd been able to just sit and watch the frogs. They let him do that all afternoon when he wanted. Then at dinner they would listen to the CD and after dinner they would go for a walk and listen to the real thing. By the end of the week he could identify frogs he'd never even seen just by listening to them.

Then after the walk they would sit around the back lawn watching the fireflies and counting the stars until there were too many for even Dad to count. And they would point out the constellations and tell him stories and eventually he would fall asleep in Mom's lap thinking maybe Family really was the best thing ever.


End file.
